The Summer Trip
by fangirlwriting
Summary: There's a reason Phineas and Ferb invent together. There's also a reason Phineas always refers to Ferb as the one who is "handy with tools." When Phineas was a toddler, he was good at designing inventions, but not patient enough to build them. And Ferb was a natural tinkerer, but he wasn't quite sure what to do with his abilities. So if Phineas and Ferb had never met...
1. Chapter 1

_Phineas Flynn_

 _Danville, U.S.A._

 _June 2_

"So." Linda Flynn set down her meatloaf at the table where Phineas and Isabella were both sitting. "You're off to England soon."

"Yeah!" Phineas called happily. "It's gonna be great!"

"Speak for yourself." Isabella groaned. "I still have to pack everything. Mom and I are gonna go shopping tonight and get a 'mega-suitcase' so I can basically pack my dresser."

"Nope!" Phineas called. "Don't bother! I have created the ultimate handbag. It can hold a massive amount of items before it reaches capacity, it self-organizes itself, it's programmed to find the thing the person reaching inside wants, and it doesn't even look like a purse!" he cleared his throat slightly awkwardly. "The last part's mostly for me."

"Mmm-hmm." Isabella said. "And is this handbag going to explode, or…"

"Nope!" Phineas said again. "I double checked everything, then double checked everything again. Or-I quadruple checked everything I guess. It all checks out. I even tested it with some of my socks, and I actually found them again."

"Wow." Isabella said, honestly sounding a little impressed. "That would be pretty amazing even by normal standards, but by Phineas Flynn messy standards…"

"Wow. Thanks."

Isabella laughed.

Linda then spoke up again. "So what are you guys most excited about, then?"

"The Big Ben!" Phineas said. "I think I can get inside it, and I can probably improve it if I work hard enough."

"How about we don't start off the summer by blowing up one of the most famous clocks in the world?" Isabella asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm just looking forward to touring London. And maybe seeing if there actually is a 221B Baker Street."

Phineas groaned.

"What? Candace got me into the series!" Isabella protested.

Linda chuckled. "Candace gets everyone into Sherlock Holmes. She is incredibly good at doing so."

"Why does she even like it?" Phineas complained. "A lot of the things in those books are impossible, in my opinion."

"Like you would know!" Isabella said, slapping him lightly on the arm. "You try to do the impossible on a daily basis."

"Candace had it recommended by one of her internet friends from England, I think." Linda remarked. "And she has a point, honey."

"Mom!" Phineas groaned.

Both of them laughed.

"Where is Candace, anyway?" Isabella asked a second later. "I would've thought that she would be here to see us off."

"She couldn't make it." Phineas said. "Next week is finals week. She texted me earlier. She has to study, but-" he paused, and wrinkled his nose. "She 'sends her love.'"

Isabella smirked.

Phineas stuck his tongue out.

The three of them ate the rest of the meal talking and joking, until Isabella got a call from her mother saying she had to come pack. Phineas gave Isabella her handbag, a goodbye kiss, and promised to see her again the next day before retiring to his room to do some drawing.

He sketched a few blueprints for inventions that may or may not ever be created, and then shut his sketchbook in favor of his laptop.

He spent a couple hours watching scenes from the latest Space Adventure movie, which he had seen in theaters with Isabella a few days ago. His mom knocked on the door, and Phineas hopped up to say goodnight. He gave his mom a hug and crossed to the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth and went back into his room to go to bed.

The summer trip to England was something both he and Isabella had been looking forward to for weeks, despite the fact that it was pretty much full of everyone they hated. It was a very exclusive trip, and they both felt more than a little privileged to be going.

Phineas had packed everything he needed in his bag, including (but certainly not limited to) most of the clothes in his dresser, three toothbrushes, plenty of idea-filled sketchbooks and plenty of book books, his favorite set of 100 mechanical pencils, a comforter that he had designed that was supposed to adjust itself for any temperature, some spare parts, and his toolbox.

They were supposed to be working with another group, but Phineas had no idea what they would be like. He probably wouldn't make many friends. People couldn't be that different when all that separated them was an ocean.

Of course, then you came to the other problem-the people he would be spending the summer with who were currently less than an ocean away. Some of them he was worried about-Buford and Katie, just to name a few.

But they didn't have to see them all the time, right? Heck, they barely had to see them at all. Sure, they had a couple community service projects to do ("We're not prisoners!" Isabella had complained.), but most of the time was theirs to tour the city, as long as they stayed with someone from London and didn't go off on their own. So really, the only people Phineas had to worry about were the ones that he didn't know.

That was not making him feel better.

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _London, England_

 _June 2_

Ferb woke up early that day. His father had made biscuits with honey for breakfast. "So." he said. "There are those children coming soon from America."

Ferb nodded. His teachers had been talking about it at the end of school. Apparently he would (theoretically) have to spend the summer giving a tour to some teenagers that were coming from America as part of an exchange program. They were also doing some community service projects. He didn't really get that part as much. They weren't from juvy, right?

"So are you going to talk to some of them?" his father asked.

Ferb rolled his eyes. He doubted it. Ferb was…well, strange. There was no other way to put it. For Pete's sake, he had turned a set of headphones and broken laptop into a artificially intelligent robot.

Well, okay. To be fair, he'd also used 3 rubber bands.

"Ferb." his father said, interrupting his thoughts. "You don't know what these people are like. You haven't met them yet."

Ferb sighed. "Father, people cannot be that different when all that separates them is an ocean."

His father raised an eyebrow. "You never know. I used to live in America. It can be quite different."

"It's not likely I'm going to have to be a tour guide anyway." Ferb said. "They all get to pick their own tour guides."

"Right when they get off the plane, remember?"

"So my first impression is a weird, quiet kid with green hair. Not exactly encouraging." he sighed. "This summer is probably going to be just like every other summer." Staying inside, fiddling with various objects, maybe a couple trips to the movies. "That isn't necessarily a bad thing."

"It isn't necessarily a good thing either." his father pointed out.

Ferb sighed. "I was chosen as a possible tour guide, we set up a couple guest rooms just in case, and I'm going to the airport. That's all I'm required to do."

And it was all he was going to do.

It was later, in his room, while he was disassembling and reassembling his cell phone, that Ferb teased with the idea of being a tour guide. What exactly would that mean?

He would have to-well, give them a tour, obviously. He would answer any questions they had about England, and he supposed they would spend quite a bit of time with him considering they would be staying in his house.

Maybe it was better if he did just have a regular summer. Better than meeting people he didn't know and being forced to spend time with them, especially if they ended up like all of the other people he'd known as a kid.

So he told himself he was just preparing himself in the off chance that he found himself with those responsibilities. He wasn't wondering, or wishing, or anything stupid like that.

But still.

It would be a shame to have made those guest rooms for nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

_Phineas Flynn_

 _Washington D.C., U.S.A._

 _June 6_

They had been accompanied by Phineas' mother all the way to D.C.-Isabella had said goodbye to her mom back in Danville, as she hadn't been able to get off work. And when they had reached the gate, they had happened upon another surprise.

" _Candace!"_ Phineas yelled, ignoring the stares of other people, and rushing forward to give his sister a hug. Candace laughed, and a couple seconds later, she received a hug from Isabella too.

Phineas backed away a moment later. "What are you doing here? I thought you had to study for finals!"

"Well, I couldn't miss sending off my favorite brother, could I? Not when I wasn't going to see him all summer!"

Phineas grinned in reply.

"It's great to see you, Candace." Isabella said. "I really thought I wasn't going to see you until September."

"So did I." said Linda.

"So did _I_." Candace admitted. "But I'm in good shape on most of my finals, which gave me a few hours to come see you off. But, I have to warn you. If the plane is any later than an hour, I have to go."

"We'll live." Phineas waved her off. "It's great to get to say goodbye at all." They all walked over to their plane gate and sat down in a group of chairs. Luckily for them they were some of the first ones there, so they actually got seats. "How have you been?"

Candace raised an eyebrow. "I did mention next week was finals week."

"Right. Stupid question. Make sure you get enough sleep, okay?"

"I'll do my best." Candace said. " _You_ have to make sure to send me plenty of pictures from England. Tell me who your tour guide is. If they're a jerk, I'll be happy to fly over and beat them up for you."

"If they're a jerk, it's our fault." Isabella pointed out. "We pick our own tour guides."

"Still willing to do it. You guys are picking one together, right?"

"Of course we are." Phineas rolled his eyes. "What do you think we are, stupid?"

"Never."

When the rest of their classmates slowly began to trickle in, they mostly sat as far away from the Flynn family + Isabella as possible. (That meant they were going to be the last ones on the plane, but they didn't know that yet.) Finally, _finally_ , around 55 minutes late, as Candace was glancing at her watch and about to leave, there came the announcement to get on the plane. Isabella gave Candace, then Phineas' mother a quick hug, and said she would save him a seat near the back, where they both preferred to sit. Phineas gave his mother a hug first, and then Candace. "I'll miss you guys." he said. "I'll see you in late August."

"I'm looking forward to it." his mother said. "Goodbye, Phineas." They all hugged one more time and Phineas turned and went into the plane, waving back at his family. Then he turned a corner, and they were gone.

Isabella had indeed saved him a seat in the back, on the left, and it was a window seat too. "Aw, girlfriend of the year." he said, giving her a quick cheek kiss.

"Yep, that's me." Isabella grinned. "I'm amazing."

Phineas took the seat. There were three seats in the row, but luckily for them, no one wanted to sit next to him-or it was Isabella. Sometimes you couldn't tell.

The flight was supposed to last about 7 and a half hours, which Isabella had admitted she would most likely sleep through-they'd had to get up pretty early to make it to Washington D.C. on time. Phineas had raised his eyebrows and offered her a shoulder. She had playfully punched his arm…and twenty minutes into the flight she was snoring on his shoulder.

Phineas was staring out the window, trying not to worry. They were choosing their tour guides the _minute_ they got off the plane. What if he chose someone he thought looked alright, and they ended up hating each other? Or hating Isabella? They would have to live with their tour guides. How would that work if they hated spending time together? He wished they could get to know the tour guides a little first.

Finally, Phineas managed to pull his sketchbook out of his handbag without waking Isabella and do some drawing. Everyone had laughed at Phineas and Isabella when they showed up with just one bag each, saying they were gonna have to do a load of laundry a day, but neither of them had said anything as they all had lugged their enormous suitcases-more than one, for some of them-into the baggage area and they both simply carried their incredibly light bags right onto the plane with them.

Phineas had sketched out the idea for the handbags onto one of the last pages of the sketchbook. He would have to get a new one in England.

They were now flying over an ocean. They were supposed to arrive in England around 7PM, so he supposed that didn't give them a ton of time to get to know everyone, but they might have been able to do, like-a speed dating type thing. A Speed-Get-To-Know-You.

 _Hey, I could probably design something like that._ Phineas thought suddenly. He flipped to the third to last open page and started drawing. About ten minutes later, he had finished. He called it 'A Mix-and-Mingle Machine.'

"Hey Screwy." came a voice from in front of him. It was Buford. "Try to make the plane explode."

"Screwy" was one of Buford's many nicknames for him. He used that one the most because he knew it annoyed Phineas like hell. "Screws Loose" "Screwball" and "Screw-Up" were also favorites of his.

Phineas rolled his eyes and went back to his notebook.

"Hey, Screwy! Did you hear me?"

Phineas groaned inwardly. Finally, just to get him to go away, Phineas reached inside his handbag and pulled out a pillow.

Buford's eyes widened. "Wait, how did that…"

Phineas cut him off by pulling out another one, then a third, then a fourth, and setting them up behind his head, on either side of him, and behind his back. Then he leaned back against one and shut his eyes.

"Wh-how did you-"

Phineas opened his eyes in mock surprise. "Oh, sorry, Buford, did you say something? I was asleep."

Buford scowled and muttered a few choice words before turning around and sitting back down.

Phineas grinned in triumph at the small victory and put all four pillows, then his sketchbook, back inside the handbag and went back to looking out the window, being careful not to wake Isabella.

This is where he remained for quite some time.

"Izzy! Hey, Izzy, wake up!" Phineas shook the girl beside him. "We're landing!"

Isabella, who had been snoring softly, jerked awake. "Huh?" she mumbled sleepily. She faced the window. "We aren't landing yet." she mumbled. She rubbed at her eyes.

"We're descending. I thought I'd give you some time to wake up."

"Mmm. Considerate." Isabella was not yet done rubbing her eyes.

Phineas chuckled. You couldn't tell the plane was tipping downwards, but the flight attendant up front said the plane was beginning to fly down towards England.

"We should be there in about 20 minutes." she said.

"How long do descents take?" Isabella asked curiously, seeming to have finally woken up. "Because I couldn't sworn that lady just said 20 minutes, and I could have slept for some of that."

"Oh, come off it." Phineas said. "You're going to get to wherever we're staying and we're going to be eating dinner and going to bed."

Isabella's stomach grumbled, and she went bright red. "I am really hungry." she mumbled.

"Hey, Isabella!" came a familiar voice from a few rows ahead. It was Katie. "You hungry, sweetie? Too bad you're not a Fireside Girl! _They_ get complimentary orange juice!"

"Oh, for pete's sake Katie, leave her alone." said Gretchen, from the row across from Katie. "You're hungry too. I _told_ you to pack snacks."

"There's barely room for _air_ in my bags!"

Isabella grinned devilishly, then reached into her bag and pulled out an apple. "Hey, Katie!" she called. Katie glanced back, and Isabella took a long, exaggerated bite out of the apple. Katie's gaze turned murderous.

Phineas burst out laughing. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

"Oh, you could never." Isabella said, still smirking maliciously. She took another very loud bite of the apple.

A little less than 20 minutes later, the flight attendant said to make sure they all had their seats belts on (Buford didn't, naturally) and that they would be landing soon. Then she came back and forced Buford to put on his seat belt.

The landing went fine, and one of the two teachers that had accompanied them, Mrs. Edelson, stood up to tell them something. "All right, as you all know, you'll be picking a tour guide for the rest of the summer once you step off the plane. All of the possible options should be there. Please no more than two people to a tour guide."

There came groans from the Fireside Girls.

"You will have _plenty_ of opportunities to see _all_ of your friends all summer long." said Mrs. Edelson irritably. "There will be no exchanges or re-choosings, so pick wisely."

Isabella turned to Phineas with a concerned look on her face. "She's talking about them like they're desks we're picking on the first day of school." she whispered.

"I know. It's bugging me." Phineas hissed back.

"You may get off the-" Mrs. Edelson cried out and dove for her seat as most everyone there stampeded past her. Isabella stood up and walked in a very "princessy" style towards the isle. Phineas made an 'after you' gesture when he reached it.

"Why, thank you." Isabella said with a giggle, and walked daintily towards the front of the plane. Phineas followed her, and tried to hold back laughter as they passed a very frazzled Mrs. Edelson. They walked through the small tunnel, and finally entered the airport in London, England.

Of course, as the two had expected, most tour guides were already "taken." Phineas scanned the group, forcing himself not to judge, and finally noticed someone standing alone near the back of the group, but still clearly part of the group. The person had an oddly shaped face and green hair. He looked weird, but Phineas was okay with weird. He had been "weird" himself for his whole life.

He grabbed Isabella's hand, and began to walk over there, pulling her along for a little bit, but she eventually got where they were headed. Then they just held hands because they wanted to.

When he noticed them approach, the person looked surprised. Didn't he know he was supposed to be a tour guide? Phineas stuck out his free hand, which happened to be his left one. Phineas was right handed, but his right hand was sort of busy at the moment. "Hi." he said. "I'm Phineas, and this is Isabella. Nice to meet you."

Up closer Phineas noticed that the person who was facing him was a little bit taller than him, and had very dark blue-purple (almost black) eyes. He still looked surprised that they were talking to him. "Um…Ferb." he said, shaking Phineas' left hand with his own.

"Alright, is everyone with a guide?" came the other chaperone, Mr. Hart. Many different "yeses" came. He commenced saying several different instructions, such as to listen to your guide, make sure you are with them all of the time, blah, blah, blah. Finally, after instructing them when and where they were going to meet for the first community service project, he said the guides could take them all home.

About time. Phineas had eaten all of his snacks and he was still starving.

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _London, England_

 _June 6_

Ferb arrived at the airport a little early, despite the fact that the plane probably would most likely not be there for another hour at least. Ferb brought a book to read, and that was pretty much what he did, until other possible tour guides began to show up.

His father had to work that day, so Ferb had taken a cab to the airport by himself, and he would be taking one back by himself an hour later.

So the hour was spent ignoring the occasional balled-up piece of paper that was thrown in various places by his idiotic classmates and attempting to focus on his book. He was reading Moby Dick again, for lack of more sophisticated material than the last book he'd read at the library, and the fact that he didn't have enough money to constantly buy books online.

 _Finally_ , the plane landed, and Ferb stood up along with the rest of his classmates. There were only six of them there, considering not many people from America were coming (apparently it was very expensive). Mr. Johnson stepped forward and said to _please_ make a good first impression and be nice to all of the kids from America. They would be touring no more than two teenagers, and other than that they all knew what to do. With that, Ferb stepped closer to the back of the group as most of the others moved towards the tunnel entrance.

And then the kids poured out in a massive group. Ferb noticed a larger boy and a skinny boy, but most of them were Fireside Girls. (Because of course that bloody group had to exist in America too.) They all, as he had expected, flocked to the front of the group, the Fireside Girls splitting into three groups, and the larger boy dragging the smaller and very nervous looking boy over to the same tour guide. Ferb was about to turn around and go to the toilet when two more, a boy and a girl, stepped out from the tunnel. They scanned the group, and then they headed straight for _him_.

"Hi." said the boy. He stuck out his left hand. He was left handed? "I'm Phineas, and this is Isabella. Nice to meet you."

For a fraction of a second Ferb stared at them, shocked they had actually picked him as a tour guide. He couldn't have looked very inviting.

But then again…the boy didn't exactly look "normal" either. His head was shaped like a triangle. The girl had silky raven hair and was wearing a pink bow in her ponytail. Ferb glanced down very briefly at their grasped hands. The boy was being very welcoming and inviting, despite the fact that it was supposed to be the other way around, but, though it might have been unintentional, he was also sending a very clear message: She is mine.

"Um…Ferb." he reached out easily with his left hand (Ferb was ambidextrous) and shook Phineas'.

One of their chaperones, a male, spoke up then, asking if everyone had a tour guide. There was a various series of "yeses" and then he commenced giving instructions. It looked like the students knew all of them, because they all appeared very bored.

Finally, the chaperone said when and where they were meeting up for their first community service project (which was a very simple picking up trash), and said the tour guides could take the students back to their houses.

So he supposed those guest rooms weren't going to go to waste after all.

"So, the baggage area is over here." he said, about to walk towards it.

"Oh, no need." said Isabella.

Ferb turned in confusion.

"This is all we've got." Phineas said, both of them hoisting up their handbags, which looked practically empty.

Ferb raised his eyebrows. "That's it? For the whole summer?"

"Oh, don't worry about it." Isabella said. "Phineas _really_ knows how to maximize space."

Ferb stared for a few more seconds. Then he shrugged. Fair enough. "Alright. Let's go get a cab then."

They went out front, where Ferb hailed a cab and told them his address. Phineas and Isabella were staring out the window for most of the time, and when they finally arrived, Ferb paid the cabbie and pulled out his key.

"Take off your shoes as you go in, please." he said. "Father doesn't like them."

They both did so.

"Father!" Ferb called into the kitchen. "We're home!"

Lawrence Fletcher stuck his head through from the kitchen doorway. "Oh!" he walked out, with a apron and oven mitts on. "It's so nice to meet you both! My name is Lawrence Fletcher."

"I'm Phineas, and this is Isabella." said Phineas. Isabella gave a little wave. Phineas stuck out his right hand this time (was he ambidextrous too?), and Ferb's father shook it. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Fletcher."

"Lovely to meet you too. I hope you like fish and chips."

"Uh…I guess?" Isabella said. "We don't often eat that in America."

"Is that so? Well, you've been missing out, haven't you. The kitchen is right through here." he walked back the way he had come.

On the table was fish and chips.

" _Oh_." Phineas seemed to get it instantly. "Yeah, that's what we call 'fish sticks' and 'french fries.'"

"They aren't French." said Ferb in confusion.

"Nah, we just call 'em french fries." said Isabella, walking towards the table. His father dragged over some extra chairs. "It is pretty different in America."

Ferb's father raised an eyebrow at him, as if saying 'I told you so.' "I used to live in America." he said.

"Yeah?" Phineas asked. "That's pretty cool. To be honest, I know just about nothing about England."

"Well, let's see if we can't change that a bit." said Ferb's father.

Then, from Ferb's left came a familiar chatter. Ferb climbed up and walked over to Perry, picking the platypus up and carrying him over to his food bowl, then pulling the food down from the top of the fridge.

"What's that?" asked Phineas.

"He's our pet platypus Perry." said Ferb's father as Ferb put Perry's dinner into his bowl.

Perry moved to start eating as soon as Ferb stood up.

"We got him on a trip to America when Ferb was little." his father finished.

"Hey, that's awesome!" called Isabella. "I've never met anyone who had a platypus for a pet! I've got a chihuahua, though. His name is Pinky."

"Well, there is that one lady from a couple neighborhoods over who owns a beaver." Phineas said as Ferb sat back down.

"True, but that's hardly a platypus, is it?" Isabella pointed out.

When Perry finished his meal a few minutes later, he trotted over to the table, seeming to inspect Phineas and Isabella. He must have been satisfied with Isabella pretty quickly, and then walked over and stared at Phineas for an extended length of time.

"Uh…" Phineas leaned back, towards Isabella. "Does he not like me or something?"

"Well, he's not very fond of strangers, but he doesn't usually act like this." Ferb said in slight confusion.

Finally, Perry shook his head as if shaking away cobwebs and jumped straight onto Phineas' lap.

"Well this is even more confusing." Phineas remarked, looking down at the platypus.

Ferb got up. "Perry, no-" he started.

"Nah, it's okay." Phineas said. He began to scratch Perry behind the ears. "He _is_ pretty cute." Perry remained there for the rest of the meal, which confused Ferb even more than him glaring at Phineas. Because although Perry rarely _dis_ liked visitors, him taking an instant liking them was even rarer.

After dinner, they showed Phineas and Isabella their rooms and the bathroom, and they both said it had been an exhausting day and vanished.

"So." Ferb's father said, as Ferb was about to retire to his own room for some late-night building. "You're a tour guide."

Ferb rolled his eyes. "Alright, yes. I'm a tour guide. Happy?"

"I am." Ferb's father said with a pointed smile. He walked into his room.

Ferb rolled his eyes again and gave the empty hallway a brief smirk. Then he walked into his room, followed by Perry. Perry hopped onto his own bed, which was over by the window, and promptly went to sleep. Ferb changed into his pajamas and went out into the bathroom, only to be confronted by Phineas brushing his teeth when he opened the door.

"Oh. Sorry." Phineas said. Ferb waved him off and leaned back against the wall next to Phineas' bedroom door, as the bathroom was right across from it. Phineas finished and moved to stand farther into the bathroom as Ferb walked in.

"So." he said. "Since I'm going to be living with you for the entire summer, can I ask you a question?"

Ferb pulled out his toothbrush, and shrugged.

"Okay, sorry if this is offensive or something, but I'm _really_ curious. What's with the hair?"

Ferb sighed. "Oh, alright. Fair enough. My mother had green hair, and _still_ no one is sure why. I inherited it from her. But most everything else is from my father."

"Had?" Phineas asked hesitantly.

Ferb nodded and put some toothpaste on his brush. "She died when I was four years old." he stuck the toothbrush in his mouth. He did not elaborate.

"My dad died when I was three."

Ferb pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth and turned to Phineas, surprised that this was something they shared. "Really?"

Phineas nodded. "I don't really remember him that well. I know he was an inventor, and really good at it, but mom told me that. Candace remembers him much better than I do. Uh-she's my older sister. Honestly…" he rubbed the back of his neck. "The only thing I remember about him is finding out he died. He got in a car crash and was hit by a drunk driver. I remember going to the hospital and the doctors telling us there was nothing they could do, but we never even got to see him. I don't even really remember what he looked like for myself, I've just seen pictures. But his head was shaped like mine and he had red hair like mine, and…I really don't know why I'm telling you all this." he chuckled awkwardly. "Sorry."

Ferb put his toothbrush back. "It's alright." he said. He leaned against the sink. "Honestly, I remember my mother almost perfectly. I'm still not entirely sure why that is…but yeah, she had green hair that she gave to me. Dad took over her antique business for a while when she died, but we moved pretty quickly. Antiques were her favorite thing in the world. She found them really fascinating. In all honesty, she was just a good mother. She died in a roller coaster accident."

Phineas paled.

Ferb blinked. "Are you alright?"

"F-fine." Phineas said. He swallowed. "Sorry, I just don't like roller coasters."

"That's alright. I don't either. Well, for obvious reasons." Ferb said. He smiled sadly a little bit.

"Yeah." Phineas muttered. He glanced away and shut his eyes. "I'm gonna go to bed now." He moved to walk out.

"Wait, did I offend you or something? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No." Phineas said, but he still did not look at me. "It's not you. It's my problem. Honest."

Then he opened his door, went inside, and shut it behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

_Phineas Flynn_

 _London, England_

 _June 7_

The next morning, Phineas woke up early with plans to get a new sketchbook that day. He had filled up the one that he'd brought.

Maybe he could ask Ferb if they could go shopping in a mall or something-wait, did they have malls in England? He would have to ask about that too.

So at the breakfast table he brought up the question of shopping for a new sketchbook. Ferb said England was pretty much their playground for the summer, so they could shop anywhere they wanted. Luckily, Isabella and him had brought plenty of money, and they just had to exchange it at an office somewhere first, according to Mr. Fletcher.

So, naturally, they both gave their money to Ferb, because he probably understood it much better.

Ferb came back some time later with euros in exchange for dollar bills, and they all walked out of the exchange office.

And a half hour after that, Phineas had four brand-new red sketchbooks, all that looked like his original, one he still had at home. The original had been from his father (according to his mom and Candace), so he tried to keep the style he got the same every time.

"You really use those quickly, huh?" Ferb asked.

"Oh, he really does." said Isabella.

Phineas smiled. "I would yell at you for that comment or something, but I really do." He couldn't help it. He was practically a mountain of ideas.

Isabella laughed. "So. 'England is our playground' and all that. Where do you wanna go, Phin?"

Phineas grinned maliciously.

Isabella's eyes widened. "No."

"Yes."

"I thought we said we _weren't_ going to start the summer by blowing something up!"

"No, _you_ said that and I chose not to answer."

"Phineas!"

"Um, quick question." came Ferb's voice. They both glanced at him. "Should I be more concerned than I already am? What are you two talking about?"

Phineas and Isabella spoke simultaneously. But Isabella said it looking and sounding concerned, with a face full of dread. Phineas had a look of mania in his eyes, and a grin that was too big for his own good, and he said it in a way that said this would either go very very well, or very very badly. "Big Ben."

"For the record, this is a really, _really_ bad idea." said Ferb as all three of them made it to a platform and took a break from the constant life-threatening spinning of the gears. "What are you even planning to do in here?"

"No idea yet." Phineas said. He leapt onto the pendulum, which began to swing back and forth.

"Phineas!" Isabella called nervously, but Phineas just hopped off the pendulum and onto a nearby ladder.

"I just have to get a better view first." Quickly he climbed the ladder and looked at everything below them. He could just do a whole "service" thing, like what they were supposed to be doing here. It would definitely be easy to shine up the gears and clock face…but that was boring. If he used the outside he could create easy entrances into the clock. Or he could make it more fun for anyone who happened to be doing maintenance…

Phineas snapped his fingers. "I got it."

He reached inside his bag and pulled out his toolbox along with enough parts to build what he had in mind. Isabella, then Ferb, came into view from the ladder.

"Phineas…" Isabella said nervously.

"If it blows up, the most it'll do is damage the immediate area. The actual clock won't break." Phineas assured.

Ferb said something, but it was so quiet Phineas couldn't hear it. "Huh?" he asked, looking over at him. But Ferb was focused on the device, so eventually Phineas turned back to that. Finally, he looked over it and moved to switch it on, only to have himself stopped by another hand quickly slapped on top of his.

Phineas glanced up. Ferb pulled the device away and took out a screwdriver of his own. Phineas stared at him for a second. Then Ferb proceeded to work on the device himself, fixing problems Phineas couldn't see. About ten seconds later he tossed it back. Phineas caught it, then blinked at him.

"Go on, try it." Ferb gestured towards the device.

Phineas looked down at the device and flipped the switch. Around them projected a forest. He turned the dial on the side, and it changed to a desert, then the mountains, under the sea, out in space-all while keeping the actual parts of the clock visible so they could be worked on easily. He turned his wide-eyed gaze back to Ferb.

"It was almost perfect." Ferb said. "It just needed one or two touch-ups."

"That-was amazing." said Isabella. "How did you know how to do that?"

"I've been doing things like that my whole life." said Ferb with a shrug. "I'm not exactly the best at coming up with ideas, but I can build just about anything."

"Well, that is almost creepy." Phineas said. He pulled his used-up sketchbook out of his bag and handed it to Ferb, who began to flip through it. "Because I'm a designer."

Ferb's eyebrows shot up. "You drew all this?" he asked. He was currently pointing at Phineas' Mix-and-Mingle Machine.

Phineas nodded. "I've got a reputation back home for being an inventor. Or-a screw-up inventor, I guess, cause most of the stuff I build blows up."

"Or doesn't work properly. Or falls apart. Or ends up backwards." said Isabella, counting them off on her fingers. "Or-"

"Yeah, I think he gets it." Phineas said.

Isabella smiled. "Well. This is a pretty impressive coincidence, if you think about it."

Ferb handed Phineas' sketchbook back. "Well, I could definitely build all of those if you want."

"Uh…I don't really do big projects." Phineas muttered, glancing away from Isabella.

"They don't have to be big." Isabella pointed out, with a tinge of sadness present in her voice. "They can just be some stuff to help make summer a little more fun."

Phineas mulled over the idea. "Yeah." he said finally. "I could do that. As long as you're okay with it?" he asked Ferb.

Ferb gave a half-smirk-half-smile. "Sure. I don't usually come up with anything to really test my building skills. This'll be fun."

"Cool." Phineas said. He glanced down at the device. "Now I just need to leave this where someone will find it."

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _London, England_

 _June 7_

After Phineas did just that, the three of them left the clock through the same door they came in.

So the designing thing had been a surprise, but a _good_ surprise. One Ferb certainly had not seen coming. He wondered if Phineas had grown up similar to him.

When they had all mentioned it to his father at dinnertime, he had seemed surprised but strangely pleased. "So you two should get along well, then." he said to Phineas.

To be honest, Ferb had already thought they were getting along well, but this would certainly make things more interesting.

After dinner, Phineas and Isabella walked into the other room, and Ferb followed, curious to see where this was going.

He saw Phineas pull out a cell phone, and him and Isabella both sat on the couch. Isabella glanced up at him. "Come on over!" she called to Ferb. "We're just Facetiming Candace, is all. She's Phineas' older sister."

Ferb walked over and sat down on the other side of Isabella. The phone rung a couple times before a person with bright orange hair appeared, smiling. "Hey, Phineas!" she called.

"Hi Candace! Good-afternoon, evening? Uh, what time is it over there?"

"It's about 3PM." Candace said. "I just got out for the day. Why, what time is it over there?"

"Just past 8 in the evening." remarked Isabella. "Oh! This is Ferb." she gestured, and Phineas turned the camera towards him. Ferb blinked in surprise and gave a little wave.

Candace's gaze narrowed suspiciously.

Ferb backed up a little bit. "Uh-did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"Did you?" Candace replied with narrowed eyes.

"Candace!" Phineas snapped, turning the phone back towards him. "You can't stop looking over my shoulder even when I'm across the ocean!"

"Hey, I'm just tryin' to make sure I don't need to punch someone in the face."

Ferb blinked.

Isabella chuckled and nudged Ferb with her elbow. "Yes, she's always like that." she said to him.

"Candace, I can handle myself just fine." Phineas said pointedly.

Candace sighed. "I know you can. Alright, alright, I'll stop. How's England?"

"Well, we went inside the Big Ben." Isabella said.

"Wait, you did?" Candace asked in confusion. "But there was nothing on the news about an explosion."

"There almost was." Isabella said with a grin.

Phineas smacked his forehead. "Honestly you two, not everything I build blows up!"

"It would have." Ferb pointed out. "You didn't tighten the screws enough, and your calibration on the dial was slightly off. Little things like that often make a big difference."

Phineas glared at him. "Oh, _you're_ helping!"

Ferb chuckled.

"Wait, wait, wait." Candace said. "Green haired kid just used words that sounds like they came from Candace's brother."

"Ferb's a builder." Isabella explained. "He checked over Phineas' device and managed to fix it."

"Really?" Candace said, raising her eyebrows. "Well, you two were made for each other, weren't you?"

" _Candace_." Phineas grumbled.

"Oh, for pete's sake, I'm just kidding. Let a big sister have a little fun, okay?"

Phineas mumbled something under his breath that wasn't exactly PG rated.

"Hey, in all seriousness, make sure you three have fun this summer, you got me?" Candace said, dropping the sarcasm.

"Yeah, we got it." Phineas said, rolling his eyes. Then he gasped. "Oh, no! I forgot about my massive list of chores that Ferb's father is making me do. Bye, sis." he promptly hung up.

Isabella burst out laughing, and Ferb chuckled too. "Well, you two certainly have a strange relationship, don't you?" he said with a grin.

"Oh, they love each other to pieces." Isabella said. "They've just got a funny way of showing it." she nudged Phineas with her elbow this time.

"Yeah, sort of like my relationship with you." Phineas said.

"Ouch." Isabella said, but she was beaming. "Well, at least you said you love me."

Phineas rolled his eyes, but a blush had appeared on his cheeks.

"So, what about you two, anyway?" Ferb asked.

"What do you mean?" Isabella asked.

"Well, you are dating, right? When did that happen?" he elaborated.

"Oh, we were actually pretty young." Phineas admitted. Then he paused and turned to Isabella. "Wait, were we ten or eleven?"

"Ten." Isabella said. "Remember, your mom went on that whole rant about how we were still kids, and how back when Candace was our age she wouldn't start dating Jeremy for a good five years."

"Oh yeah." Phineas said. He chuckled. "That really annoyed me. I think I came up with a whole invention just based around that rant. Never actually intended to build the thing, it was just a way for me to vent my 'rage.' It was supposed to find ways to turn mom's own argument against her." He chuckled again. "But yeah. We were ten."

"Well you didn't waste any time, did you?" Ferb asked, giving a small smile.

"To be fair, we _were_ each other's only friends. We spent quite a bit of time together." Isabella said. She shrugged. "Then came Comet Kermillian, and Phineas walked me home and kissed me goodnight, and things just kind of grew from there."

"Izzy." Phineas grumbled, now as red as a tomato.

"Aw, Phin." Isabella said, walking over and giving him a kiss on the cheek. "We've been dating for six years. You really oughta lighten up a bit."

Phineas grinned. "Oh, yeah? Okay." He then pulled her in for a much fuller kiss.

"Okay, I'm going to leave now." Ferb said, looking away and using his hands to cover the scene. He laughed as he left. "G'night lovebirds."


	4. Chapter 4

_Phineas Flynn_

 _London, England_

 _June 8_

Today was everyone's first community service project, and honestly, anyone passing probably would've thought they were all from Juvy, because they were given those sticks to pick up trash and all given a section of the field they were in to clean. The only thing that might have created doubt was the fact that none of them were wearing jumpsuits.

As usual, everyone was staying far away from "the outcasts"-an exclusive group that now included Ferb.

It turned out Ferb wasn't very well liked either. When Phineas asked him about it, he said that it was pretty much for the same reason that Phineas had-he was just viewed as a weird kid with a weird habit; and the fact that he had green hair and didn't talk much did not help matters.

At one point during the morning, Gretchen Gueler had come over to the edge of her area, and gotten the trash no one else wanted to-because it was near the three of them. She had looked very annoyed while doing it. At one point Phineas had sworn he had heard her say "Hi." very quickly and stiffly, but when he and Isabella glanced over, she was extremely focused on the trash, so they let her be.

Then came lunchtime. Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella all sat underneath the only tree in the area. The two teachers seemed baffled that no one else was going over there when it was practically a hundred degrees out (of course they got to sit in their air conditioned car).

Or, actually-

"Hey, you guys use celsius." Phineas said to Ferb. "So what would the temperature be for you?"

"Uh…" Ferb pulled out his phone and switched it on. "It's 37 degrees right now." Ferb said. "Honestly, that confuses me. You guys know most of the world uses celsius, right? Why does America still use fahrenheit?"

Isabella shrugged. "I don't know. Americans are stubborn." she said. "We probably wanted to have our own 'special' way of doing things or som-"

She was interrupted by Gretchen Gueler plopping down slightly to their groups right, inside the shade of the tree. She stared out towards everyone else and took another bite of her sandwich.

They all stared at her for a second. Phineas exchanged a glance with Isabella. "Uh…can we help you?" Isabella asked.

Gretchen shot a glare at them. "No." she snapped. "I just think it's stupid to sit in the sweltering, hundred degree heat when there's plenty of room under the tree." she turned back to her lunch.

Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella all turned back to each other. After a second, Phineas shrugged. Then he reached for his bag. "Okay, so I brought along my sketchbook." he pulled it out. "And honestly, all this heat is getting me thinking. What if there's a way to get it to snow in the summertime? You know, just to cool off a bit without having to go to the pool and pay to get in?"

"You could use some kind of see-through capsule that could cut off the outside world." said Ferb. "And then adjust the temperature inside to whatever you pleased. Oh, and artificial snow is the easiest thing in the world. You can do it with a slightly altered snow cone machine."

"So you guys are going to make winter in summer?" Isabella asked, raising an eyebrow. "That's ridiculous."

They both glanced at her curiously, and she rolled her eyes.

"Well, you can't do it in a tiny capsule. You have to find a way to spread it over a larger area. That way someone could go sledding, build a snowman, or ski. That design needs some adjustments."

Phineas laughed. "You wanna make a giant artificial winter?" he paused. Well, he supposed if they had a big enough area… He glanced at Ferb. "Do you have a backyard?" he asked.

Ferb shook his head.

"Hmm…" Phineas muttered. "Are there any laws against doing that kind of thing in a park?"

Ferb paused, then shook his head again. "Although that could be because no one ever thought someone would try to do that."

"Well!" Phineas called, rubbing his hands together. "I love a good loophole. When do you guys wanna do it?"

"Well, we'll have to order some parts first." Ferb pointed out. "We can do it on the day they arrive."

"Sounds good to me." Phineas said with a grin. "You in, Isabella?"

"I am 100% in." Isabella said. She turned her head to look behind her. "Gretchen, how about you?"

Gretchen quickly glared away from where she had been staring at them. Isabella gave a small smirk to Ferb, and Ferb chuckled.

Phineas turned back to Gretchen. "Do you want to come sit over here?"

"No, you weirdo!" Gretchen snapped. "I'm not going to talk to-you and your weirdo friends who are talking about weird impossible things!"

Phineas raised an eyebrow.

"What kind of stupid thing are you doing anyway?" Gretchen snapped, turning her back to them and tossing another glare over her shoulder. "I'm sure it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of."

Phineas glanced at Ferb and Isabella. "We're making S'Winter."

"You're calling it S'Winter?" Isabella asked, raising an eyebrow. She paused, "Well, I guess 'Wummer' sounds stupid."

Phineas smiled. "Alright, so it's settled!" he said happily. "S'Winter it is!" He gave a little smile and turned back to Gretchen. "We can let you know when we're doing it if you want."

Gretchen glared away, but her gaze drifted back towards them. "Uh, I'd like that." she muttered finally.

Phineas grinned.

The teacher's then spoke up, telling everyone lunch was over and it was time to get back to the reason they were all there.

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _London, England_

 _June 8_

They all walked back over towards the rest of the group, who were all gathered in a circle as the teachers were walking back over to the car-probably to grab something to read or an umbrella to sit under. Teachers were one thing that weren't different in America.

As they made it over, Ginger-Isabella and Phineas had explained the names and personalities of all of their lovely companions to Ferb when he had asked about them-ran over and pulled Gretchen away. "What are you doing associating with _them_?!" she snapped.

"I wasn't!" Gretchen protested. "I just didn't want to sit in the sweltering heat when I could sit under the tree. I was still away from them."

"You were _talking_ to them." Millie pointed out.

Phineas turned to the Fireside Girl group. "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that our _dangerous_ ways are contagious."

Ferb inwardly smirked. But then Buford whirled around to face them, taking a moment to pause from giving the kid behind him a wedgie while the teachers weren't looking. "You've got some nerve, Screwball." he snapped to Phineas. "Your ways _are_ dangerous, and you know that."

Phineas' reaction was immediate and surprising. He seemed to almost fold in on himself, and he stopped talking-which was even more surprising, given how much of a chatter Ferb had come to expect from the teenager.

Isabella's reaction was also immediate, but not nearly as surprising. She turned on Buford. "Oh, you're one to talk!" she almost screamed at him. "You get into fist fights on at least a weekly basis, and you smoke about a pack a day!"

"Shut up!" Buford yelled back. "You have no right to be talking to me that way! You're just as bad, you hang around with him!"

"Please!" complained a voice Ferb had not heard before from the back. It was Baljeet, who was a Hindu boy that Phineas said was Buford's 'Nerd,' which apparently meant Buford was the only one who got to bully him. "Can you two get along for one second? The teachers are returning, and you are both just going to get us all in trouble."

"What's wrong with trouble?" asked Archie, who was another tour guide-he was in fact Buford's and Baljeet's, if Ferb recalled correctly.

Ferb rolled his eyes. "You'll get in just as much trouble as they will, Archie," he pointed out.

"Shut it, Toolbox." Archie snapped. And he was about to say something else, when one of the teachers called out: "Alright, everyone come get a shovel and a seed packet!"

Archie grumbled about not getting to finish his insult and walked over to the pile of shovels and seed packets the teachers had put out. Buford followed, dragging Baljeet along with him.

Everyone else followed at their own various pace, with Gretchen shooting one last nervous glance at the three of them before marching off.

Ferb turned to Phineas, who was still staring at the ground. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Isabella, who had still been steaming a second ago, adopted the same concern as Ferb and turned back to Phineas.

"Yeah." Phineas mumbled. "I'm fine. I'll…go get us some shovels." He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked off, a far cry different from the boy who had been excitedly talking about S'Winter not ten minutes ago.

Ferb turned to Isabella. "What was that about?" he asked. "I mean, I've dealt with bullies before, but nothing on that level. He seemed really upset."

Isabella sighed. "It's…not my place to tell you. It was something that happened a long time ago…. But if you want to know, you need to ask Phineas, not me. Sorry, Ferb."

Ferb sighed. "No, it's alright. I can respect that. I just wish I knew what was wrong."

When they got home, Phineas went up to his room, which seemed neither to surprise nor please Isabella. She went upstairs, got her handbag, and went over to the couch to read a book.

Ferb, feeling like he should do something productive, called his usual Superstore, who knew him by name and number.

"Why, hello Ferb." said a familiar voice when he answered.

Ferb smiled, even though Rebecca could not see it, but he was still not in the best of moods. "Hi Rebecca. Can I get some parts?"

"You don't even have to ask. What do you need?"

Ferb listed off the things they would need to make S'Winter, including some weather resistant supplies to make the dome that would block off the summer heat, a snow cone machine, plus some supplies to alter it, and plenty of winter supplies for whoever would happen to be at the park at the time-such as sleds, coats, earmuffs, boots, ice skates, gloves, and skis.

"Well then." said Rebecca. "Have you got something special planned?"

"Yes." Ferb replied. "It was actually Phineas' idea. He's staying in England for the summer." Ferb decided not to mention his current mood, and the fact that he wasn't entirely sure they would actually be doing the project anymore.

"Oh, that's lovely." said Rebecca. "Well, I hope you two have fun. The supplies should be there in a couple of days."

"Thank you." replied Ferb. And because he needed to get his mind off of Phineas, he said: "I hope Daisy got over her fever."

"She did," Rebecca responded, "and within minutes was splashing around in puddles."

Ferb chuckled. "That's sounds just like her." he noticed Isabella staring at him, and moved to end the conversation. "Well, it was nice to talk to you. Have a good day."

"You too! Hope those parts get there soon and you guys have fun!"

Ferb hung up.

Isabella chuckled. "You're on first-name basis with the Superstore?"

"Yes." Ferb replied, walking over to the couch and sitting down. "I order parts from there at least weekly. They all memorized my number ages ago. Are you guys that close with the delivery people back in Danville?"

"Nah." came Phineas' voice. Ferb glanced over to the staircase, where Phineas was standing, looking a million times better. "Most of what I do is designing, remember? I don't order things from them enough that they would know me. Although I do prefer Hightail-that's our delivery system. They have a 7-minute delivery."

Ferb nodded approvingly. "I can see how that would be beneficial. Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah." Phineas said. "Sorry about this afternoon."

"That's alright." Isabella said. "I get it. Are we still planning to do S'Winter?"

"Why wouldn't we be?" Phineas asked, coming over and sitting on the other side of Isabella. "When are the parts supposed to get here?"

"In a few days, according to Rebecca." Ferb said. "And there's a park nearby we can use for the actual area."

There came a crash from the kitchen. "Oh, dear." came the voice of Ferb's father. "Ferb, can you come help me?"

Isabella leaped up. "I've got it!" she called, running off before Phineas or Ferb could protest.

Ferb shook his head. "She did that on purpose."

"Of course she did. She's Izzy." said Phineas, rolling his eyes with a smile. Then his smile faded.

"Phineas," Ferb said slowly. "What happened back there?"

"I…don't know if I'm ready to talk about it." Phineas mumbled, reverting partly back into the scared boy Ferb had seen earlier.

Ferb didn't like this side of him. "You just…Buford said one thing, and you…basically shut down. I don't think I've ever seen another _person_ do that before, much less a happy-go-lucky one like you."

"It's not a big deal." Phineas said firmly.

"Are you sure? Because it seemed like a pretty big deal."

"It's…whatever. It doesn't matter. I really don't want to talk about it." Phineas said. And it looked like he wasn't going to, because just then Ferb's father called the two of them for dinner.


	5. Chapter 5

_Phineas Flynn_

 _London, England_

 _June 9_

According to Ferb, Saturday was "Family Game Day." It was also the first day Phineas noticed the absence of a certain teal pet.

"Oh, Perry always vanishes during the day." Mr. Fletcher said when he asked. "It's pretty normal."

"Uh, are you sure?" Phineas asked. "Because we used to have a dog named Bucky, and he never disappeared during the day."

"Really?" Mr. Fletcher asked. "Well, that certainly is bizarre. Maybe it's just Perry then."

"Pinky usually disappears at some point during the day." Isabella said. "It's not that odd."

"I dunno, Izzy. That was never my experience." Phineas said. He shrugged. "But maybe I had the weird pet, and disappearing in the morning is perfectly normal."

"He's always back by suppertime, so we really don't think much of it." said Mr. Fletcher with a shrug.

With that Ferb came back with several game options. They ended up picking Skiddley Whiffers, as it was the only game Phineas and Isabella were really familiar with.

"We'll have plenty of opportunities to learn British games and stuff." Isabella said. "I want to do something familiar."

"Fair enough." Lawrence said with a shrug.

And that was what the four of them did for most of the day. Phineas and Isabella usually took turns winning, due to having much higher standards-those standards being Candace Flynn. It was after Isabella won her fifth game in a row that Ferb threw his hands up. "Okay, I'm done!" he exclaimed. "We are going to play something else now!" He shoved the game board to the side, up against the couch, and marched back over to the pile of games sitting nearby.

"Aw, is someone a sore loser?" Isabella said in a baby doll voice.

"Yeah, I think anyone would be a bit of a sore loser when they lose twenty-five games in a row." Ferb replied, plopping down with Scrabble.

"You've obviously never played my sister." Phineas said with a laugh.

" _You've_ never played Scrabble." Ferb pointed out.

"Of course we've played Scrabble." said Isabella. "We're just not _familiar_ with Scrabble."

"See, I don't know what you guys are used to, but here in England, being unfamiliar with a game means you've never played it before." said Ferb.

"Alright, we don't _often_ play Scrabble." Isabella said. "Better?"

Ferb gave her a deadpan look that Isabella laughed at.

"Look, I don't know what to tell you." Phineas said with a shrug. "My mom _despises_ Scrabble. And since Isabella spends most of her time with my family, neither of us play it very much."

"Why does your mother despise it so much?" Mr. Fletcher asked.

Isabella and Phineas paused, then shared a look. "I-don't know." Isabella admitted. "It never seemed important enough to ask about."

"Here, we can FaceTime her and ask." Phineas said pulling out his phone.

"You really don't have to." said Mr. Fletcher. "I'm not _that_ curious."

"Eh, we owe her a call anyway." Phineas said with a shrug. "We talked to Candace the other night, but not her."

Phineas remembered at the last second to check what time it was (it was 4PM in England and 11AM in America), and then they called Phineas' mother.

She appeared on screen already smiling in a slightly passive-aggressive way. "Well, hello you two." she said. "My, that was a long flight."

Phineas chuckled. "Sorry, mom." he said sheepishly. "It slipped my mind."

His mother raised her eyebrows. "It better not again." she said seriously.

"It won't." Phineas said sincerely.

"Alright, now why are you calling? There must be a reason other than you wanted to talk to your mother."

"Well-" Phineas started, but he was interrupted by Mr. Fletcher.

"Hang on, I know that voice from somewhere." he said. He walked around the game board, and peered at the person in the video.

"Lawrence?!" Phineas' mother burst out.

Phineas blinked. "What?"

"Linda!" called Lawrence. " _You're_ Phineas' mother? My, it is a small world, isn't it?"

"Wait, you two know each other?" Isabella asked, as Ferb walked around to look at what was going on as well.

"Well, yes, we knew each other back in the 90s." said Mr. Fletcher.

"You did?" Phineas asked, raising his eyebrows.

"We did." said his mother from the phone. "Well, it's wonderful to hear from you again. How are you?"

As Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella exchanged a surprised look, Phineas and Ferb's parents proceeded to talk about everything like they were friends who had seen each other last week. Eventually, Isabella picked up the Scrabble game and the three of them decided to move to Ferb's bedroom, which Phineas had never seen before.

It was pretty much what he expected. It was small, there was a bed right next to the window, a desk with a couple of rolled-up blueprints inside a box, as well as a box with many spare parts (along with spare parts being in neatly organized boxes everywhere else around the room), a toolbox at the foot of his bed, a bookshelf covered with a variety of very advanced books (including _War and Peace_ and _Moby Dick_ ), and a dresser, as well as a small closet next to the entrance to the room.

Ferb moved aside a bucket full of what looked like scrap metal, and set the box with the game down.

"This is much cleaner than Phineas' room." Isabella said.

Phineas shot her a look, and Isabella shrugged. "It is."

"What does his room look like?" Ferb asked.

"It's-"

" _Well that's not_ really important is it because we're not there." Phineas interrupted loudly, resisting the urge to elbow Isabella in the side.

Ferb laughed. "That bad, huh?"

Phineas gave him a look that showed he was clearly not amused, but that only made Ferb laugh harder.

They set up the board and each picked seven pieces, and before long, they were really getting into the game. For a while, it was completely silent as they all simply played words without speaking (Ferb won the unspoken "best words" contest by playing "quinzes").

"I wonder when they'll realize we all left," Isabella mused, drawing laughter from all three of them.

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _London, England_

 _June 10_

Phineas had managed to gather all the parts in his room and fill up an entire sketchbook with ideas on what to do with them. They had ended up modifying all of their cell phones so they could teleport, play the drums on a rimshot app, and get better (and larger) video images than most television sets, among other things.

Candace, when they called and told her about it, had demanded they do hers next. Phineas said he would take home some blueprints and notes so the phone wouldn't blow up. His mother had simply laughed and shook her head. Ferb's father had immediately made Ferb do his, and Isabella's mother had been amused and impressed.

Next they had gathered a bunch of materials and made a platypus house for Perry. It was big enough that Perry could fit inside and crawl around and such, but also small enough that it fit reasonably in the living room. Perry seemed to like it a lot, as he crawled inside immediately and gave himself a tour.

Then he popped back out and gave a thank-you chatter to the three of them.

After that Phineas ran immediately back to the bedroom and grabbed more materials.

Ferb laughed. "You're going to run me out of supplies." he pointed out with a smile. "I'll have to get more."

Phineas' eyes widened in childlike wonder. "Where do you get them from?" he asked in a whisper.

Ferb laughed. "It's scrap." he said. "Parts I pick up off the ground, or take from previous inventions. The side of the road, even, as long as it doesn't look too dangerous or rusty. Oh, and I raid condemned buildings all the time."

Phineas looked at Ferb like he had handed him the meaning of life. "That is genius." he whispered, staring into the space slightly to the left of Ferb's head for a second. A second later his eyes lit up again and he grabbed more materials like the conversation had never happened.

"Wow." Ferb remarked as Phineas gathered more materials and shoved them into varying piles in the center of the room. "When he gets going…"

"Oh, believe me, I know." came a new voice. Ferb turned to see Isabella leaning against the door frame with a smile on her face. "But I haven't seen him go this nuts in a long time."

Ferb smiled. Phineas dug around in his pocket for a second and pulled out a screwdriver. He went to work on the supplies in one of the piles, with Ferb walking forward and sitting down beside him so he could fix any mistakes. Phineas almost seemed to blur, he was moving so fast.

It continued this way for a couple hours, at least.

Finally, Phineas reached for more materials only to find that there weren't any. "They're all gone?" he said, an almost pouting look taking over his face.

"I told you." Ferb said. "I don't have infinite amounts of supplies."

Phineas sighed and slumped down onto the floor in disappointment. Then he practically zapped upwards. "Then we gotta go get more!"

"Woah, slow down!" Isabella called. "It's almost dinnertime!"

"Suppertime." Ferb muttered, though no one acknowledged it.

Phineas blinked at her. "It is?"

"You've been inventing all day, Phin." she replied.

"How much time do you think has passed?" Ferb asked, raising his eyebrows in slight amazement.

"Uh…I dunno. A half hour or so?" Phineas said. He pulled out his phone and checked out the time. His eyes widened as he seemed to finally realize how much time had passed (about 7 hours).

Isabella laughed. "Aw, that's my Phin." she walked forward and gave him a teasing kiss on his cheek. Phineas shoved her playfully away, and Isabella laughed.

Then the call came for all of them to come down to supper.

 _June 11_

 _3:04 AM_

 _London, England_

Ferb was awake staring at his ceiling. He had been woken by a nightmare a few minutes ago, and was now lying awake in the dark.

Nightmares were nothing new to anyone, but what had bothered Ferb was that it had been about Phineas.

He surprised even himself with how quickly he'd grown attached to him, considering he had only known him for…

Had it really only been five days? It felt much longer than that.

What Ferb usually did when he woke up from a nightmare was build or fiddle with something until he fell asleep again, but Phineas had used up all of his supplies earlier in the day.

So instead, he climbed out his window, and up to the roof-something that had taken him a long time to master, but that he was still glad he'd done-and looked at the stars.

A couple minutes later a window opened on the other side of the house. "Hello?" came Isabella's nervous voice.

Ferb shifted his eyes as far behind him as he could go without moving his head. "It's just me." he called.

Isabella sighed in relief. "Ferb, you scared me."

And Ferb sat up in surprise when Isabella climbed up onto the roof with minimal effort. Ferb stared at her.

"What?" she asked. "Just because I'm not a Firestorm or Firestar Girl or whatever they call themselves doesn't mean I can't do stuff."

"That took me _years_." Ferb said in amazement.

Isabella shot him a pearly grin. "Well, girls are better than boys, as it is written in The Known Laws of the Universe." She tipped her head to the side. "So why're you up here, anyway?"

Ferb leaned back against the bend of the roof, deciding to dance around the subject. "Do you…ever worry about Phineas?" he asked hesitantly.

"Oh, yeah. I'm always worried he'll blow himself up or shoot himself into the sky. Then again, that's a pretty rational fear considering he's…well, Phineas." said Isabella. She walked forward and lay on her back to look at the stars. "Of course he gets hurt every now and then, but he always ends up okay. Why?"

"He's very…" Ferb hesitated, thinking back to his nightmare and trying to find the right words to describe what he was worried about-it had nothing to do with inventing. "…trusting." Ferb finally finished. "Of other people."

"I know." Isabella said quietly. She seemed to understand what Ferb was getting at. "That can worry me too."

Trusting to a fault. Ferb wondered for a second how many times he tried to make friends with bullies back in America, or justify their actions, before he accepted the fact that some people are just bastards for no reason. Part of Ferb wished he had never had to.

But then Isabella said something that surprised him. "Honestly, he used to be the complete opposite."

Ferb shot her a look. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, he was the shiest little kid. During our first conversation, I think he said about five words to me, and some of them I couldn't hear."

Ferb raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Seriously?" A shy Phineas was about as hard to imagine as…well, as whatever had happened with Buford a few days ago.

"Seriously." Isabella said. "I think we both sort of helped each other in that regard, because I had no filter whatsoever when I was little. So he helped me get a handle on that, and I helped him not, well, be so shy that he couldn't speak."

Isabella looked curiously at Ferb, and sat up, folding her arms across her knees. "Why all the sudden worry?"

Ferb bit his lip, trying again to put his feelings into words. He wasn't exactly the greatest with expressing himself when it came to "deep" stuff. Finally, he settled on:

"It feels like I've known you two a lot longer than I actually have. It's only been five days, but it really doesn't feel like that."

Isabella blinked for a second. "Yeah, I guess it does feel longer than that. Why would that _worry_ you?"

"I…guess I'm trying to say I like you two. And as someone who hasn't really had a friend before other than his pet, it's kind of hard to wrap my head around the fact that I made two of them so quickly, or that I care about them so much."

"Aw, Ferb." Isabella said. She gave him a one-armed hug and a smile. "That's really sweet."

Ferb rolled his eyes, but inwardly he was smiling too.

"We like you too, you know," Isabella clarified. "Just in case you were worried."

At that Ferb gave her an exterior smile. "I really wasn't."


	6. Chapter 6

_Phineas Flynn_

 _London, England_

 _June 12_

Phineas walked down the steps still rubbing his eyes. He yawned. He had not slept well the previous night. He wasn't entirely sure why, as he didn't remember having any nightmares, and nothing had been bothering him the day before.

He'd come down the steps and was walking past the front door when the yawn froze dead in his mouth. He turned to the side to look at the boxes sitting by the door that someone must have brought in. He wasn't tired anymore.

"It's here!" he called, rushing forward towards the packages.

"Oh, hello Phineas." came a new voice from behind him. "Are those for you?"

Phineas turned with a smile. "Hey, Mr. Fletcher." he said. "Yeah, we're making a giant artificial winter in the park today!" he paused, realizing for the first time that he had never asked permission. "Is that okay?"

"Well, I suppose as long as you're careful." he said, rubbing his chin. "Ferb builds things all the time, so I'm more or less used to it at this point."

"Awesome! Uh…by the way, have you seen Ferb?"

"I think he's still in bed." said Mr. Fletcher. "He'll be up sooner or later. I'm going to make french toast." He walked off the kitchen.

Phineas sighed. "Waiting." he groaned. "Well, I guess I should tell Gretchen that we're doing S'Winter today."

But something else made him pause. "I…never got her phone number."

But he did know their teacher's numbers, since it was required everyone taking the trip knew them. So Phineas pulled out his phone and asked Mr. Hart via text message what address Gretchen was staying at, and that they wanted to invite her to something.

A couple minutes later he had the address.

When Mr. Fletcher was sprinkling powdered sugar on the second batch of french toast and Phineas had already eaten about four pieces, Ferb and Isabella both walked into the room, still yawning.

Phineas laughed. "Hey, sleepyheads! You get enough rest there?"

Isabella mumbled something incoherent.

Phineas gave an overdramatic, purposely drawn-out sigh. "Well then I guess S'Winter is put off for another day."

Ferb and Isabella both whirled towards him. "What?" Isabella asked in excitement.

Phineas pointed back towards the front door. "Parts arrived today."

Both seemed very awake now. "Awesome!" Isabella called. "Where are we gonna do it?"

"Probably Hyde Park." Ferb said, noticing the french toast and taking three pieces (Mr. Fletcher made really good french toast). "It's nearby, and certainly big enough."

"But is the capsule big enough to cover the whole park?" Phineas pointed out.

"I've got a spatial bender that I made a few years ago up in my room." said Ferb. "It can cheat the laws of physics a bit."

"We've got to let Gretchen know we're doing it today. I got the address of where she's staying from one of the teachers." Phineas said.

Isabella nodded, and then she noticed the french toast for the first time and reached out and took a couple pieces. When she'd put syrup on and taken a bite she turned to Mr. Fletcher. "These are really good." she said with a smile.

"Why, thank you." he replied. "They are my favorite thing to make."

"And my favorite thing to eat." Ferb said with a grin.

And with that said, the conversation dissolved into topics of what they were going to do for the day. Mr. Fletcher had work, so he wouldn't be joining them at the park, but he said he looked forward to hearing all about it.

And when he did leave for work, Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella all went into the other room to check and make sure they had all the parts they needed (they did), and then set off to where Gretchen was staying.

When they got there, Isabella went up and knocked on the door.

It was answered by Katie. Said person narrowed her eyes when she spotted the visitors. "What are _you_ doing here?" she snapped.

"We're here to see Gretchen." Isabella said, almost smugly.

"Well, I'm sure she doesn't want to see you." Katie replied.

"I got this, Katie." came Gretchen's voice. Katie rolled her eyes and disappeared inside, and Gretchen came out and shut the door behind her.

"You guys doing it today?" she asked.

Phineas nodded. "Hyde Park, ASAP."

"I'll be there." she was about to go inside when she paused. "Oh, here." She handed her phone to Isabella. "Put your number in. That way you can avoid future run-ins with Katie."

"Thanks." Isabella said, doing just that. "See you later."

When the door closed, Phineas turned to Ferb. "What's up, Ferbmister?"

Ferb rolled his eyes at the nickname, but then turned his curious gaze back to the house. "Just trying to figure her out." he mused.

"Yeah, I don't know what her deal is all of a sudden." Isabella said. "She's never been this friendly with us before, but then again, she's never really insulted us either."

"She's a lukewarm person." Phineas said with a shrug. "Maybe it's the whole fact that we're across the ocean and there's not as much of a reputation to maintain."

"Reputation?" Isabella asked. "What reputation?"

Phineas shrugged. "I dunno. Everyone's got a reputation, don't they?" He gestured between the three of them, pointing at himself, then Izzy, then Ferb. "Screw-up, Weirdo, Freak. That's not who we are, it's just who everyone thinks we are. Maybe the difference between us and Gretchen is we don't bother to keep up our reputations."

Isabella blinked, and then smiled. "That's pretty insightful for a screw-up."

"Hey, I just said I'm not my reputation."

Isabella laughed as the three of them walked away.

Gretchen arrived in the middle of the building of the capsule. And she seemed pretty eager to help, as she immediately asked what she could do.

Ferb gave her a part of the capsule no one was currently working on, and everyone went back to their own section, with Ferb checking the sections over when everyone finished and Phineas pointing out where they needed to set things up to get the best sledding hill areas and snowball fight areas.

When the whole capsule was set up, Ferb turned on the spacial bender, and although there was no visible change in any form of the word, the capsule now covered the entire park.

Gretchen grabbed her forehead. "I think my brain just broke."

"It can take a while to get used to spacial benders." Ferb admitted.

"Alright!" Phineas called, noticing people in the park starting to realize something new was happening. "Let's hand out some winter gear!"

Ferb whipped up a quick megaphone with which Phineas let everyone know what was happening, and then everyone (although they looked disbelieving) walked forward and grabbed some winter supplies. He supposed they figured that since there was now a giant capsule over the park that _something_ must have been going on.

"You guys ready?" Phineas asked, holding a large, 4-person sled under his arm. He was standing near the snow-cone-machine-turned-snow-machine.

"Let's do it!" called Isabella, grinning.

"Do it _soon_." Gretchen complained, although she was still smiling. "I'm going to get heat stroke in this coat."

Ferb gave him a thumbs up.

Phineas turned and flipped the machine on, and it began to rumble. He stepped back in surprise. "Uh, is it supposed to do that?" he asked Ferb nervously. Usually, when his machines rumbled, it wasn't a good sign.

But Ferb just grinned. "Yep."

Then, as they watched, the machine shot out an enormous artificial snowball into the sky. People screamed. It hit the top of the capsule with a satisfying _thwack_ and then spilled out everywhere.

When Phineas looked around again, snow was covering the ground. His nose was already red from cold, and he could see his breath. There were frozen over lakes for ice skating, large flat areas for cross-country skiing, and even some artificial sledding hills. Phineas grinned, turning on the megaphone one more time and announced:

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to S'Winter!"

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _June 12_

 _Hyde Park, London_

After their twelfth sled down the hill, Ferb announced he was going to go try some cross country skiing, and that Gretchen was coming.

"What? Why am I coming?" Gretchen asked.

"Because you are." Ferb said, and after they were out of shot, he elaborated: "And I think the two of them want some time alone."

" _Oh._ " said Gretchen. "Okay, yeah."

When they got there and while they were putting on skis, Ferb turned to Gretchen again. "So, what's your deal, anyway?"

"What do you mean?" Gretchen asked, just before she fell over onto her butt. She groaned. "Sorry. I've never really gone skiing before."

"It's not that hard. I can teach you." Ferb said. "And I mean the way you act towards Phineas and Isabella. You act like you want to be friends with them, but you're also embarrassed to be seen with them."

Gretchen sighed. "I'm…I'm not okay with how everyone treats them. It goes directly against Fireside Girl policies to judge someone before you get to know them. I-I know it sounds like a first grader wrote that rule, but I still stand by it. Besides, the two have them have done some pretty amazing things, and…I kinda want in."

"But…" Ferb probed.

Gretchen sighed. "But the Fireside Girls are my friends. I don't really have any other ones. Pretty much everyone else in the school likes me, sure, but more in a 'fan' sense or a casual sense. I just…I don't know if I could deal with everyone in school hating me because I'm friends with them."

Ferb said nothing for minute. Finally, he simply said: "Hmm" quietly.

"You think that's despicable." Gretchen groaned.

"I don't." Ferb assured her. "Honest. I've just had people like that in my life before."

"People like me?" Gretchen asked in surprise.

Ferb gave her a pitying look. "Half-friends."

Gretchen looked down.

"Well." Ferb cleared his throat, bringing the conversation to an end. "Come on then. Let me teach you how to ski."

They did so for the next half hour. Gretchen surprisingly got very good very quickly, and by the time Phineas and Isabella came to find them, she was almost better than Ferb himself.

"Aw, man!" she called. "Is downhill skiing this easy?"

"Depends." Ferb said with a shrug. "It's different."

"Hey, there you guys are!" came Phineas' voice. Gretchen and Ferb both turned to see him and Isabella approaching, both wearing and carrying sets of ice skates. "We were gonna go skating. "You guys wanna come?"

"Sure." Ferb said. "Are those for us?"

"We kinda had to guess your size since the skates were already almost gone." said Isabella. "Gretchen, I got you a five." she handed them to her. "And Ferb, Phineas got you a 6.5."

"I just kinda grabbed the biggest ones they had." Phineas said. "I figured since, you know, you're so tall…"

"Yeah, that works." Ferb said, taking the skates from Phineas.

The four of them found a frozen over lake and remained there for quite a while. Ferb had lost track of how much time had passed since the start of S'Winter, but when he glanced up and saw the sun had begun to set and it was well on it's way to being nighttime, he brought up taking S'Winter down soon, and Phineas, though he looked disappointed, agreed.

Phineas took out the megaphone and let everyone know they would be taking S'Winter down because it was time to go home. There were some grumbles of complaint and sighs of disappointment, but mostly it was happy smiles and thanks for a fantastic day.

Ferb was deactivating the machine when someone pulled on his coat. He turned around to see a little girl beaming at him. "Thank you for S'Winter, Mister. You're amazing!"

Ferb chuckled. "You're welcome." he said. The girl's mother came forward and also thanked him, saying they'd had a lot of fun and hoped they were going to do other things like this during the summer. The little girl waved as the two of them walked off. "Bye, Mr. Amazing Builder Person!"

Ferb didn't stop smiling for a while after that.

After the three of them said goodbye to Gretchen they headed back towards home, and more importantly, supper-they had missed lunch.

Such a fact did not sit well with Phineas, since he had found out that dinner (or lunch, whatever you called it) was the "big" meal in England.

"Oh, for pete's sake, Phin!" Isabella finally burst out. "You're going to give me a headache! If you're _that_ hungry just eat something extra when we get there!"

Phineas grumbled something.

"What did you say?" Ferb asked.

" _Nothing_ , that was my stomach!" Phineas exclaimed. " _See?!_ "

Isabella groaned, and Ferb chuckled.

However, when they got back Phineas seemed to almost forget about his hunger, as there was instead a long explanation on what the three of them had done that day, with Phineas, Isabella, and Ferb all telling equal parts of the story.

But suddenly, Phineas stopped talking entirely. It took a couple minutes to notice, but when Ferb did glance over he saw Phineas' tell-tale look that meant his gears were spinning at top speed. So Ferb simply went back to supper and let him be.

Then Phineas turned to Ferb. "Hey, when's the summer solstice?"

Ferb blinked in surprise. "June 21. Why?"

"Be right back." Phineas hopped up and left the table, leaving everyone else there.

"And he's off." Ferb said with a farewell nod towards Phineas' retreating outline.

"Does that happen often?" Ferb's father asked.

"Oh, yeah, all the time." Isabella said. "Hey-you know, I actually am really hungry. Is there some way I could get seconds?"

After supper they found Phineas sitting on the couch scribbling away madly in his sketchbook.

"Phin?" Isabella asked in confusion. "What are you doing?"

Phineas glanced up and saw them, then grinned. "Check it out!" he called happily, turning his sketchbook to face them. On the newest page was a design called the 'Sun-Beater 3000.'

"Is that an airplane?" Isabella asked.

"Yeah." Phineas said with an excited nod. "Designed to go around the whole world in one day-um, June 21-and make the summer solstice even longer!"

"Hey, that's a really good idea." Ferb said walking forward to pick up the sketchbook. "If you add the extra 24 hours you would get following the sun to the 15 you would've had originally, that's a 39 hour day."

"Yeah!" Phineas said excitedly, for this seemed to have been exactly what he was thinking. "And we would end up right back in London at the end of the 39 hours, so we wouldn't have to worry about finding our way back."

"Well that sounds fantastic. Let's do it." Ferb said happily.

Phineas blinked. "Huh?"

"Let's do it." Ferb repeated.

"Oh, um…" Phineas hesitated. "I wasn't actually intending to do it. It was just an idea. Too many things could go wrong on this for my taste."

"Oh, come on, you can't draw up something like that just to let it sit in a sketchbook." Ferb exclaimed. "We could do it. The solstice is coming up, right? In a week and a half or so. Let's build this thing."

Phineas still looked unsure. "I don't know…"

It was Isabella who came up with the real solution. "What about we give it a test run? Like, we could build in an autopilot or something, and send it on a shorter route without any passengers."

"Sandbags." Phineas interrupted at a blink-and-you'll-miss-it pace.

Ferb gave him a look that was part surprise, part confusion.

But Isabella just picked up right where she'd left off. "Right. Sandbags. And then if it makes it okay, we'd be all good."

Phineas considered this for a second, and then grinned. "Yeah, okay. Let's do it." he said. "But I have to warn you, if there are problems with the test we'll have to put it off for another day."

"Naturally." Ferb said, starting to smile himself. "So we're all in?"

"All in!" Isabella called, putting her hand in the space in the middle of the three of them.

Ferb and Phineas both shared a simultaneous roll-of-the-eyes and put their hands in as well. They all threw their hands into the air, and just like that it was settled.


	7. Chapter 7

_Phineas Flynn_

 _London, England_

 _June 15_

The parts had gotten there that morning. Unfortunately, they also had another "community service" thing that day. They were supposed to have one every couple weeks, so it had been expected, but it was still annoying.

They had managed to gather up all the parts they would need to build the plane and shrink them, then put them in a bag. The plan was to build and test the plane during lunch.

This could only end well.

It wasn't that Phineas wasn't excited to do this, it sounded like a lot of fun. But it had been a _really_ long time since he'd invented in front of anyone but Izzy. Well, there were Ferb and Gretchen, but he had done it _with_ them, and that was a little different.

When they got there, everyone else was already painting the wall of a building, which everyone was doing with varying levels of vandalism.

After explaining why they were a little late, they set the bag of shrunken parts off to the side for later.

Then they each grabbed a paint smock and brush and moved over to paint the wall.

The morning passed pretty uneventfully, without even much talking. At least, there wasn't much talking between Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella. The Fireside Girls were all in one big group, most likely trying to catch up on every single detail they were missing about each other's lives. Buford was painting next to Baljeet, shoving him and making his brush jerk around every couple seconds. Most of the british tour guides were standing in their own group, bar Ferb.

About two hours into painting Izzy nudged him. "Are you gonna paint the wall now?" she asked.

"Huh?" Phineas asked. He glanced back to the wall and realized he had been painting miniature blueprints in white paint. "Oh." he said. He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed.

Isabella laughed and shook her head. "That's my Phin."

After that Phineas had gone on to actually painting the wall. They had done this for another hour and a half or so before the teachers finally took pity on them and told them to go eat. Phineas had been eating much larger lunches than usual lately, which made both Ferb and Isabella laugh.

Today though, all three of them had packed a tiny lunch that they could eat in the span of ten minutes…which they did. Ferb grabbed the bag, they all went off to the side from everyone else, and then they got to work on the plane.

It started with compiling most of the material into a base of metal (and some glass) and setting up the outside of the plane. In Phineas' opinion, this was the most exhausting part, but also the easiest. They quickly gained stares from students and teachers, which Phineas tried to ignore, as neither Isabella or Ferb seemed to be bothered by them.

Phineas was working on one of the wings when he realized Buford was standing behind him. He shot a look over his shoulder that hopefully looked a lot more confident then he felt. "Can I help you?" he asked, surprised at how smoothly his voice came out.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Buford snarled.

"Well, I would have thought that would be obvious. We're building an airplane." He dodged Buford's attempt to grab his foot and shimmied to a different part of the wing that he couldn't reach. Then he turned around and continued working. It took a couple minutes of Buford attempting to reach him and muttering curses for him to go away.

When he finally did, Phineas' shoulders relaxed from tension he hadn't known was there. It had been a _really_ long time since he'd invented in front of these people. The last time he'd invented in front of _anyone_ before S'Winter (and that had been complete strangers he was not likely to see again) was…

Phineas shoved the thought out of his mind before it could enter. That had been years ago. He wasn't going to let it ruin today, and they were doing it right this time. The sandbags had been the first thing he packed.

When Phineas finished working on the wing, he moved closer to the main section of the plane, where Ferb was attaching the top. "You need help with that?" he asked. Ferb shook his head, and then ducked inside the seating section of the plane to work on the wiring. So instead, Phineas went to help Isabella with the tail. He seemed to have picked a good place to help, because as he got back there the whole thing slid to the right, and Isabella groaned.

"Need some help?" Phineas said with a smile. He dragged the tail back over and held it in place.

Isabella sighed in relief. "Thank you." She went back to tightening one of the screws, and then shot a glance up at him. "Are you doing okay?" She sounded concerned.

Phineas knew immediately what she was getting at. He gave it a moment's thought, and nodded. "Yeah." he said quietly. "I think so. It's just…new. Again."

Isabella nodded in understanding.

When the plane was finally finished, the three of them gathered around it. Phineas put the sandbags inside, and they got ready to send it off on its test run.

"So it should get back around the time we have to leave, right?" Isabella asked.

"That's the plan." Ferb said. "Give or take 5-10 seconds."

"Well alright. Let's do this thing." Phineas said, grinning. He held up the remote. "We're all good?"

"We're all good." Ferb said.

"Come on, if you don't hurry up we're gonna have to start painting again and we'll miss our chance." Isabella said.

Phineas took a deep breath, less for reassurance and more for dramatic hesitation, and then hit the button to send off the plane.

They all watched it fly off into the distance, hopefully to be back from it's London fly-around a couple hours from now.

Then from behind them came: " _Are you fucking kidding me?"_ in a dangerously angry voice.

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _June 15_

 _Hyde Park, Londo_ n

All three of them turned around to see everyone else standing there-except for the teachers, who were off in their own world as usual during lunch.

Ferb bit his lip. Something was telling him this was going to be bad.

Buford was the one who had spoken. "You _seriously_ have the nerve?!" Buford was focusing 100% of his attention on Phineas, who was backing up in nervousness. Ferb saw a little bit of the Phineas from the last time Buford had yelled at him making a reappearance.

" _Buford!"_ Isabella snapped, stepping forwards. "Do you have a problem?"

"Yeah, and it's _him_." Buford spat at her. "He could hurt somebody doing shit like this. Did he _never_ learn his lesson?!"

"Hey, what gives you the right?" Ferb asked, crossing his arms.

Buford shot him a look, then burst out laughing. "Oh my _god_. He never told you what he did, did he?"

"Buford." came a still-unfamiliar voice. It took Ferb a second to place it. It was Baljeet. "I do not think you should-"

"Can it!" Buford snapped at him. And while Buford turned his attention to Baljeet, Katie came forward instead.

"Honestly, I'm not surprised." she admitted.

"Katie." Gretchen said, and there was a tone to her voice Ferb hadn't heard before.

But Katie didn't seem to hear her. She still had her attention on Ferb. "You don't wonder what his deal is? Why he's so freaked out by something he _likes to do_?!"

" _Katie."_ Gretchen said, her voice raising.

"It's 'cause when he was younger, he almost _killed_ someone!"

There was a smack, and a leftover ringing. It was Katie. Gretchen had slapped her.

Part of Ferb wanted to call them liars, but Phineas' behavior since he'd _met_ him said otherwise. So instead he took comfort in the fact that even if Phineas had almost killed someone, it most certainly had not been intentional. There was no way.

Ferb was still staring at Gretchen, who looked about ready to murder Katie, when he heard Isabella's voice. "Phineas?"

Ferb turned around. Isabella was still standing where he'd seen her last, but Phineas was gone.

And Ferb had a feeling where he might be.

It seemed Isabella had come to the same conclusion, because she turned at him. "Go talk to him."

Ferb blinked. "Me?"

"You can help more right now."

Ferb hesitated, but then nodded and ran off. He felt bad leaving Isabella with the aftermath of what had just happened, but he felt she could handle herself.

It took Ferb approximately 15 minutes to reach Big Ben. When he got there and got inside, around him was a projected image of a suburban backyard, behind a yellow-and-brown house.

Phineas' home, he presumed.

He climbed the inner workings of the clock without much trouble, and found Phineas in the same place they had built the device he was using to project his house. He looked smaller than Ferb had ever seen him before, with his knees pulled into his chest and his arms wrapped around his knees and his head inside his arms. The fact that he appeared to be sitting under an enormous tree did not help.

"Phineas?" Ferb asked hesitantly, not wanting to startle him.

"The Danville Rollercoaster." Phineas said.

Ferb blinked. "What?"

"The Danville Rollercoaster." Phineas said a little louder, maybe thinking Ferb hadn't heard him. He still would not look at him. "That's what Katie meant."

Ferb hesitated for a second, then walked over at sat next to Phineas. "What happened." he asked, his tone making it more a statement than a question.

Phineas let out an enormous sigh. He looked up and around him at the projection of the backyard. "I used to have more than one friend." he said, and Ferb waited for him to explain.

Phineas took a deep breath, and launched into a story.

* * *

 _When I was about 8 or so, this kid named Django moved to the Tri-State Area, and he started hanging out with me and Isabella. We all had a lot of fun together, even though Django was friends with Buford too, and we were worried he might have to "pick." But actually, after a while, it went the other way around, and Buford came over once or twice. It was looking like we might become a larger friend group. Things…well, things were looking up._

 _But then one day, when I was ten, I decided to build a rollercoaster. It was gonna be amazing. There was gonna be rubber snakes, and peanut butter and corkscrews…I had it all planned out, and we were all really excited._

 _We only built the one car, because there were only four of us, and we sent it on a test run first to see if the cart would get back in one piece, and it did. But…we sent it around empty. I was kicking myself for the longest time for not using sandbags or something. And uh…yeah, that's why we used them in the plane._

 _Anyway, it came around fine, but Isabella was still freaking out a bit. So Django said he would go by himself, to prove it to her. But something about the extra weight, or maybe it was that the cart wasn't balanced, I don't know…. The chain lift stopped working partway up the first hill-which was like, 3 miles high. The cart fell off the track. Django only fell about 50 feet, but he was pretty badly injured. He ended up paralyzed from the waist down._

 _His parents were furious. They sued us for…I think it was like, his hospital bill. Which I would have been willing to pay_ _ **anyway**_ _. I would've like, sold everything I owned and more!_

…

 _Sorry. Anyway, that's how my mom found out I could invent, and why Candace stopped trying to get me in trouble for it…because that's what Candace's goal was before. She was really upset that mom didn't know. Honestly, I didn't even know my mom didn't know, but mom was pretty shocked when she found out, to say the least._

 _Buford was really upset with me. Django had been pretty much his only friend, and he blamed me that he got hurt. I mean, I did build the thing after all. That's the reason he hates my inventing so much. I'm sure you noticed that goes beyond…well, normal "hate" levels._

 _Isabella was fantastic. She always seemed to know what to say to me and when. We had already been dating, but we started spending a lot more time together after that. I don't know what I would've done if she hadn't been there._

 _We actually ended up winning the court case because Django qualified as a "volunteer" or something. But after all that, I swore off big projects forever and junk. And I don't think I've even looked at a rollercoaster since._

 _So…there you go. That's the whole story._

* * *

Ferb was silent for a while after that. Phineas didn't say anything either. Finally, Ferb stood. Phineas glanced up at him, and Ferb reached into his pocket to finger the screwdriver that he kept there, which he'd specially designed to fit his hand perfectly.

"Okay." he said softly. "I think I know what to do."


	8. Chapter 8

_Phineas Flynn_

 _Hyde Park, London_

 _June 15_

When Phineas and Ferb both walked back into the park, everyone was leaving. Isabella came over immediately. "Phineas, are you okay?" she asked nervously.

"I think so." Phineas said. "Is the plane back yet?"

Isabella blinked. "Are we still doing that?"

Phineas shared a glance with Ferb, then looked back at Isabella, and then looked away and nodded, mostly to himself. "Yeah. Yeah we are."

That part had been Ferb's idea. Phineas had still been hesitant, but he really did want to build the plane, and more importantly, he wanted to prove Buford wrong. As they walked back over to where the plane was supposed to land, Gretchen approached the three of them at a run. "Are you guys okay?" she asked nervously. "I'm sorry about Katie being a jerk. She _really_ doesn't know when to shut up."

"We're alright." Isabella said. "Are you okay? You kinda…went a little nuts there."

"I'm fine." Gretchen said with a sigh. "Katie can just drive me crazy. I hate the way she talks about you two."

Phineas blinked in surprise. He hadn't known Gretchen felt that strongly about it.

Off from the right came the sound of jet engines. The now group of four turned to the right to see the plane pulling into its take off/landing spot. As it did they all walked forwards, ignoring everyone else's stares of anger or disbelief.

Not a single grain of sand had spilled.

Phineas grinned and he and Ferb high-fived.

"We made a couple extra seats in case you or Ferb's father wanted to come." Isabella said to Gretchen. "You wanna go?"

"Where are you going?" Gretchen asked.

"All over." Phineas said. "We're gonna chase the sun around the planet to make a day longer than 24 hours."

Gretchen smiled. "Yeah, that sounds like fun. When are you going?"

"The Summer Solstice." said Isabella, but then they were all interrupted by someone clearing their throat.

When they all turned, there stood Baljeet.

"Um, hey Jeet." said Gretchen. "You okay?"

Baljeet took a deep breath. "I would like to apologize for Buford's behavior. It was not appropriate."

Phineas blinked in surprise, about to say something, when Gretchen cut in. "Jeet, you don't have to apologize for Buford. He was the one being an idiot."

"Still." Baljeet said. "I am sorry." With that, he turned around and walked away.

Phineas turned to Gretchen. "'Jeet?'"

"We study together sometimes." Gretchen said. "I'm probably the closest thing he's got to a friend."

Phineas turned to where Baljeet was walking away, and then ran over to him and grabbed his arm to stop him.

Baljeet turned around again.

"Hey." Phineas said. "We've got an extra seat open if you wanna come."

"Come on what?" Baljeet asked.

"We're flying around the world on the summer solstice." Phineas explained. "Do you wanna come?"

Baljeet stared at him for a second. He blinked twice. "Um…I do not know. I will have to check my color coded schedule."

"That means he'll be there!" Gretchen called.

Baljeet sighed, but it was more a sigh of amused annoyance, as if this was something Gretchen did often. "Yes, I will be there."

 _June 21_

And he was. The trip around the world was full of visits to other countries and help from other people. They even managed to have a quick conversation with Candace after they landed in front of her apartment complex. The last trip before they landed back in England was a stop in Paris. And since they had a few hours to kill, Phineas and Isabella said they were off to go on a little tour. They parked the plane in an alleyway they were sure no one would find it, and went off their separate ways-Ferb, Gretchen, and Baljeet in one group, and Phineas and Isabella in another.

Then, after spending some time in the City of Love perusing galleries and sampling fancy cheeses, everyone regrouped at the plane and headed home.

Phineas didn't focus much on _what_ they did, to be honest. Because over the course of the day, he had instead focused Baljeet's dry sense of humor, the way Gretchen and Baljeet were obviously very close despite neither of them wanting to admit it, and about discovering Ferb's large group of cousins that lived in a different part of England. He and Izzy had shared many things about themselves as well, and everyone seemed to come away with some new thing they'd learned about everyone.

And it occurred to Phineas later that night, that if the whole summer went like this, with various trips and adventures that just so happened to include inventions, he wouldn't mind a big project or two.

End of Part One

 **A/N: Part Two is already started and will be published probably no later than two weeks from now. The formatting will be a little different, but that will all be explained when I publish it. Thank you for taking the time to read my story!**


	9. Chapter 9

**The Summer Trip: Part Two**

 _June 2000_

 _Danville U.S.A._

"Mommy?" came a quiet voice. Linda turned and looked down to see Phineas pulling on a leg of her capri pants. She set her book down and turned to her son. "What is it honey?" she asked.

"What am I supposed to do?"

Linda leaned down. "Well, why don't you go play with someone?"

Phineas shook his head quickly. "I don't want to. Everyone will yell at me."

"Oh, honey." Linda picked Phineas up and set him on her lap. "I'm sure there are plenty of kids who want to spend time with you. Why don't you go talk to him?" she pointed at a boy by the swing set.

"Baljeet? He doesn't like me."

Linda blinked. "Okay, well why don't you go talk to them?" she pointed at a couple of girls playing with dolls.

"Ginger and Katie? They don't like me either."

Linda peered down at her son, concerned, and tried one more time. "Okay, how about him?" she pointed at a boy currently climbing up the slide.

"Buford? He's _mean_."

"Oh, honey—"

"MOOOM!" came Candace's voice. She ran up to Linda. "Stacy fell off the monkey bars!"

"Oh dear." said Linda. She set her son down. "Phineas, I'll be right back." she climbed up and followed her eldest child towards the monkey bars.

Phineas cast one last nervous look at the playground, then ran off towards an area of rocks nearby. He picked one up and tested it on the parking lot. No good. He tried another. No good. And another.

It took him about 5 minutes, but he finally found a good drawing rock. Phineas ran back towards their car and crawled underneath, then began scratching against the pavement.

"Phineas?" Linda called, looking over the playground. "Phineas, we have to go!" But Phineas was nowhere to be seen.

Candace grabbed her arm and pointed away. "Mom." she said. "He's…"

Linda drew the conclusion her daughter was talking about and followed her back over to their car. Once there, she knelt down to look underneath. Phineas was dragging a rock against the black pavement of the parking spot underneath the car. "Phineas?" Linda said quietly, and he glanced over. "We have to go now."

Phineas wiggled his way out with ease and walked over to his mother, who picked him up and settled him against her hip as she opened the car door and tucked him into his seat.

As the car pulled away, it revealed a blueprint for an enormous playground.

The 3-year-old remained silent the whole way home.

When Linda pulled the car into the driveway, Candace immediately burst out her door without helping with the groceries they had gotten. Phineas unbuckled himself from his seat and climbed out the car door much slower.

He paused, however, when he noticed something. "Mommy, what's happening across the street?" he asked.

Linda looked over to see a moving van and a smaller car pulling up. "Oh, we're getting some new neighbors." she said to herself. Then she turned back to Phineas. "There's going to be some new people there." she explained.

"Will there be kids?" Phineas asked nervously.

"I don't know." Linda said with a shrug. "But if there are, maybe you should try and make some new friends." She opened the trunk and reached inside for a bag of groceries.

Across the street, Isabella Garcia-Shapiro unbuckled herself and threw open her car door, leaping out into the sunshine. "Oh, how wonderful to stand up again!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, Isa." said her mother, climbing out of her own began to look around, drinking in the new place she would be living. She paused, however, when she noticed something.

"Mommy, can I go talk to the neighbors across the street?!" she asked excitedly, pointing at the strange boy with the triangle head.

Her mother glanced over. "Well…"

"I know the rule, mommy!" Isabella called. "Left, right, left! _Then_ you cross!"

Her mother sighed with a smile. "Alright. But be careful."

Isabella ran up to the street, made sure to look left, right, left, and then sprinted across and straight up to the boy.

He was staring at her in fear.

"Hi!" she exclaimed. "I'm Isabella! Is-a-bell-a Gar-ci-a Sha-pir-o! What's your name?"

The boy shrunk back, seeming to get smaller.

"Oh!" came a different voice. A much larger person walked up. "Hi. You must be one of the new neighbors."

"I'm Isabella!" Isabella called again. Then she pointed at the boy. "He won't tell me his name!"

The woman looked down at the boy. "Go on, honey. It's okay."

The boy turned his fearful gaze back to Isabella. "Um, I'm—" She could not make out what she said here.

"What?" she asked loudly, leaning forward.

The woman put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Ph-Phineas." the boy stammered. "Phi-ne-as." He said the second part quieter, but Isabella still heard it. She grinned.

"That's a weird name!" she said happily. "I like you! You're really cute!" Then an enormous blush took over her face. "Oh gosh I just said that out loud! I'm sorry, I'm such a chatterbox! Mommy says I have no filter, whatever that means. I just say whatever pops into my head without even thinking about it! I'm trying to work on that. But it was nice to meet you! I have to go help mommy unpack now, but I hope I get to see you again!" She turned and ran off, waving behind her as she did.

Phineas stared after her in awe. Finally, he turned to face his mother. "Mommy?" he whispered.

Linda turned to face him.

"She's really pretty."

Linda smiled and ruffled his hair. "I think you've made a friend, Phineas." she said. "Do you like her?" She raised her eyebrows slightly, waiting for her son's answer.

"Yeah." Phineas whispered. He turned to watch Isabella dash off while his cheeks went bright red, and he gave a small smile. He then repeated what he'd said earlier: "She's really pretty."


	10. Chapter 10

_Phineas Flynn_

 _July 4, 2013_

 _London, England_

After Isabella complained rather passive-aggressively about missing the Fourth of July Celebrations, the group finally decided to have Baljeet and Gretchen over and watch a bunch of classic American movies that Phineas had brought.

So the day before was filled up with shopping. Chips, soda, various junk foods. Ferb's father would be in the house, so any alcohol was off limits.

"I mean, _of course_ we _never_ would have been irresponsible and bought some anyway if he was out of town." Isabella said innocently.

"Um, you guys know we can still buy some if we have his consent." Ferb pointed out. "16 year olds are allowed to do that over here."

"I'm sorry I can't hear you I'm too busy being very irresponsible with my very irresponsible thoughts." Phineas said loudly.

No alcohol was bought.

Baljeet and Gretchen arrived with food of their own, Gretchen various boxes of British candy her tour guide had recommended, and Baljeet had made something that was apparently a common treat in India. How he had managed to do so without Buford throwing it on the floor was the real mystery.

Phineas supplied the movies, and after learning that Ferb had never heard of _Clue_ (which Phineas considered a classic even though some Candace and his mother did not), everyone insisted that they watched that first.

Ferb also insisted on watching some British stuff, so after _Clue_ they watched season one of something called BBC Sherlock.

As soon as the word "Sherlock" left Ferb's lips, Phineas groaned and buried his head in his hands and Isabella squealed and leapt up to grab the DVD from Ferb.

Phineas and Ferb rigged up a quick bio-dome that could simulate any environment, that way they could watch fireworks.

Everyone (excluding Ferb) thought the British candy tasted a little weird. And Ferb's remark ("Well, American sweets taste like plastic.") made everyone laugh.

It was a night full of lots of stuff like that.

Most of them fell asleep to their fifth movie around 2 in the morning, except for Phineas, who was about as light a sleeper as you could possibly get and who couldn't deal with everyone moving around.

When Ferb started snoring, Phineas threw up his hands and went into the kitchen to get a glass of warmed-up milk, because sometimes that helped.

When he got back to the other room, he whacked Ferb upside the head rather roughly with a pillow to get him to stop snoring, and finally laid down and fell into a half-sleep.

But he woke up around four hours later when Baljeet climbed up and went into the kitchen.

Phineas got up afterwards and marched into the kitchen, plopping down in a chair. Baljeet glanced up in surprise.

"I am sorry." Baljeet said. "I did not mean to wake you."

Phineas waved him off. "I wake up to everything." he mumbled. "Why are you up so early?"

"Buford is a late sleeper. I have become accustomed to waking up early so I have a few hours of peace."

Phineas gave him a curious look. "Why do you let him treat you like that?"

"Why do you let him shoot you down with a singular mention of The Rollercoaster?"

Phineas paused uneasily, unsure whether or not Baljeet was joking. "Fair enough." he admitted. "I guess Buford is just too good at getting under people's skin."

Both of them jumped when they heard a whirring and what sounded like a pop.

"What is that?" Baljeet whispered, sounding terrified.

"Probably one of Ferb's inventions." Phineas said. "I'll check on it."

But when he looked through the living room and towards the steps he was met with— the platypus. Perry the Platypus was wearing a fedora, and staring at him with wide eyes, and the step pulled back away from the staircase, and everyone still asleep below.

A second later Perry leaped into the newly revealed space below the step, and it closed behind him.


	11. Chapter 11

_November 2001_

 _Brighton, England_

"Ferb?"

Ferb looked up from his coloring book in which he was coloring a bird. It was blue, of course. Archie said all birds were blue. Ferb wasn't quite sure if that was right.

His bird was blue.

"I need to talk to you." said Ferb's father.

Ferb set aside his coloring book without a word. His father sat down across from him.

"I know this past year has been hard on us both, with your mother."

Archie said it had been a hard year. Ferb thought he was probably right.

"So I've thought for a while about what to do, and I've decided the best decision for the two of us would be to move somewhere else."

Move? Oh no, Archie wouldn't like that. How far away? Another neighborhood? City? Another—

"Another country?" Ferb asked nervously.

"I haven't decided where to go just yet. Do you want to stay in England?"

Ferb nodded vigorously.

"Are you sure? I think an idea would be to go to America. I've lived there before, I know how it works. It might be easier."

Ferb shook his head again.

His father sighed. "Alright. I'll look into a place here in England."

Ferb watched as his father walked away to do just that, and then wondered how he would tell Archie the next time he saw him.

Archie would not like that they were moving. He would say Ferb would miss him.

Everything was a little confusing right now. Ferb knew his father thought it was because he was grieving. Ferb agreed that was part of it, but he wasn't sure that was all of it.

Either way, Archie would not like that they were moving.

 **A/N:** No, that is not the Archie previously mentioned in Part One. I have a story I am going to publish called _Archie_ where I remain in the canon where that will be explained, but Archie will not be explained in _The Summer Trip_. And in case anyone was really wondering, what is different in my opinion between these two universes is this chapter right here. In my version of the "canon" universe (though it's not really canon because the part I'm talking about is entirely headcanon territory), Ferb's mother died when he was a little younger (2 years old) and Lawrence made the decision himself to move to America, because he thought Ferb was too young to really understand what it meant. He just gave him a bigger part of the decision in this universe, although the new Archie character is a part of both universes.


	12. Chapter 12

_Ferb Fletcher_

 _July 5, 2013_

 _London, England_

Phineas was acting strangely. Ferb wasn't sure what was wrong, but he kept glancing over towards the stairs and seemed to be overly curious on the whereabouts of Perry.

Baljeet seemed to have some idea of what was wrong, but Ferb didn't get the chance to ask him anything before he and Gretchen left.

Ferb asked Isabella, but she also had no idea what was going on.

And when they both asked Phineas, he just replied that he was probably overreacting, and it was nothing.

Phineas was the worst liar.

For a while they tried to talk to Phineas about it, but after he brushed them off for the fifth time, the two gave up and went to go play chess, while Phineas spent most of the day camped out in his room.

"What do you think freaked him out so much?" Isabella asked, not looking up from the board. "Uh… king me?"

"That's checkers."

Isabella groaned. "This is impossible! Fine, how does the horsey guy move again?"

"Two in one direction and one in the other. It makes an 'L'."

"Who came up with _that_ stupid rule?" Isabella moved, and Ferb immediately took the piece.

Isabella rubbed her forehead with a sigh.

"I don't know." Ferb said.

"Huh?" Isabella asked, tilting her head.

"I don't know what freaked out Phineas so much. I was going back to your question."

"Oh." She moved a rook, and Ferb took that one too.

Isabella put her head on top of her arms. " _I hate this game."_ she said into them.

"Well, let's play something else then." Ferb said, setting the chess board aside. "As long as it's not Skiddley Whiffers."

"See! Admit it, you hate losing too!"

Ferb rolled his eyes. "Fine, I admit it."

Perry came back mid-afternoon and stood next to Ferb for about ten minutes before Ferb finally gave him a look of confusion.

"Do you need something boy?" Ferb asked. "Are you hungry?"

For a second Ferb could've sworn he saw Perry look relieved— and then he turned and walked off like nothing had ever happened.

"Hey, are we playin' or what?" called Isabella.

"Um, give me a second." Ferb replied over his shoulder, rising to follow the strangely behaving platypus.

But all that happened is that Perry walked into the kitchen and stood by his food bowl, his usual habit when he wanted to be fed. He ate quite a lot for a platypus, though Ferb couldn't say he had any others to compare him too.

So Ferb simply pulled down the food and gave Perry a shake or two of the bag's worth of food, then was about to walk back out of the kitchen when he was met with Phineas, who stared at Ferb for a second, then moved around him and towards Perry.

Ferb shot him a curious look over his shoulder, then shrugged and went to join Isabella in the living room.

 **A/N:** Sorry the Ferb chapters was so short. He's just not really "in the loop" as to what's going on, so Phineas is a bigger part of the story. Ferb will have _much_ more involvement later. But just because this one was so short, I will publish three chapters at once (even though, admittedly, two of them takes place over a decade ago).


	13. Chapter 13

_June 2000_

 _Danville U.S.A._

"So, my mom says you can come for a sleepover tonight!" Isabella said happily, skipping along backwards so she could keep Phineas in her sights. "We can use my brand-new pool! It's _so cool!_ Wait— you do know how to swim, right?"

Phineas blushed and looked down, beginning to twiddle his thumbs.

But this only made Isabella grin wider. "That's okay! I can teach you! It'll be so much fun!"

"Isa!" called her mother. "Slow down _cariño_ , and let us keep up!"

"Okay mom!" Isabella called, slowing her pace so she was walking next to Phineas more slowly.

The two were being accompanied by their mothers to the playground in the nearby park, and Isabella was pretty positive that they would spend the time talking while her and Phineas were playing.

Finally, the group arrived, and just like expected, the two grown-ups wandered over to a bench that was close enough where they could keep an eye out.

"Have you been here before?" Isabella asked excitedly. "Oh wait, of course you have, you live here! You wanna show me the best stuff?!" She started to bounce back and forth on her toes.

"Um…" Phineas looked down at his toes and shuffled his feet. "I usually…" he muttered the last part.

"What?" Isabella asked, leaning forward, although more gentle than last time. It hadn't taken her long to learn that lesson.

"I usually— Iusuallyjustdrawwithsomerocksontheground." Phineas said in a rush that took Isabella a minute to understand.

"Wait…" Isabella said. "You mean _I_ get to explore this brand new playground _with_ you?! That's so awesome! Come on, let's go try out the big slide right now!" She grabbed Phineas' hand and dragged him towards the playground, with Phineas stumbling after her.

After a couple times going down the slide and five or so minutes on the swings, Isabella suggested they get a ball from a bin that seemed to have a bunch of play equipment.

"Um, Isabella, I think that's for the big kids." Phineas said quietly.

Isabella's grin only got bigger. "Well, we can't let _that_ stop us!"

She hopped happily over to the bin and reached in for what looked liked would be a good ball for a game of catch.

"Um, hey."

Isabella turned to see a kid who looked to be about 7 or 8 standing over her.

"Hi." Isabella said with a sweet smile, then turned around and grabbed the ball.

But instead, the older kid stopped her from walking away. "Uh, look, you're clearly new around here, so I'm gonna go easy on you, but… the toys are for the _big_ kids." she said. "And uh, you and the weird kid back there were playing on the _big kid_ playground."

"I'm a big kid too." said Isabella. "I'm three and a half."

The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm almost 7." she said. "So don't think you can—"

But instead of listening, Isabella simply turned around and walked away.

"Wha— hey! You can't just walk away when I'm talking to you! That's rude!"

Isabella turned around and gave her a smile. "Rule #13 of the Good Person Protocol. 'Share everything with everyone that's not a ness'ty'."

"Uh… what?"

Stephanie had written that one. She was a really smart 5-year-old, knowing a word like 'necessity'— which Isabella couldn't quite pronounce. It was easier in Spanish.

"How did you just… do that?" Phineas asked, his voice slightly louder. He was staring at her in amazement.

"Because she broke Rule #13. That usually makes a person pretty mean, but every now and then they have a good reason. Not her, though."

For a while her and Phineas played catch, and they were both getting into it, so much that Phineas threw the ball a little too hard, and it bounced behind Isabella.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Phineas called, looking genuinely guilty.

"It's okay, I got it." Isabella said, waving it off. She walked over to pick up the ball when someone stepped in front of it. Isabella glared upwards— and was met with a brand-new, her-age face.

"Oh! I'm sorry!" she said, stepping back. "I didn't mean to do that, I thought you were someone else."

"That's okay." said the girl. "I'm here to give you some friendly girl advice."

"Oh, okay." Isabella said. "What is it?" She moved around the girl and picked up the ball.

"We've been watching you."

Isabella froze inches from the ball and turned around. "Uh… we?"

The girl pointed over to another group of girls who were watching from behind a tree.

Isabella raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"And we like you."

She turned back to the girl who was now behind her after picking up the ball.

"We're wondering if you wanna be friends."

Isabella lit up. "Oh, yeah! That sounds great! Lemme go get Phineas and we can—"

"No."

Isabella turned back to the girl once again. "Huh?"

"Look, you're Isabella, right?"

Isabella nodded in confusion. "But I don't understand why Phineas can't play too."

"I'm Katie. Over there, that's Holly, Millie, Ginger, Addyson, and our leader Gretchen. We're the Fireside Girls. And we really do like you. But Phineas can't play with us."

"Why not?"

"He blows stuff up."

"Wait… _what?!"_ Isabella asked.

"He probably hasn't told you yet, but he builds all these ridiculous things, and they almost _always_ blow up. So, yeah, we like you and we want to play with you, but not _him._ "

"But…" Isabella started. She looked around Katie to see Phineas standing there with a look on his face that Isabella did not like. After a second he just turned and walked away.

"Isa! We have to go!"

Isabella turned and looked back towards her mother, who was gesturing, and Linda was getting Phineas from the other side of the playground.

"Look Isabella, just think about it. Trust me, you do _not_ want to be friends with the walking disaster." Katie said, and walked back over to her friends who were coming out from behind the tree.

Isabella walked back over to her mom, and then they both waved at Phineas and his mother and walked towards their car.

"Who was that?"

"I… I don't know, mamá." Isabella said. "I don't know if I like her."


	14. Chapter 14

_Phineas Flynn_

 _July 5, 2013_

 _London, England_

Phineas ran into Ferb as he was entering the kitchen, and Ferb stared at him for a moment in confusion—yeah, he'd been acting pretty weird all day—and then walked into the other room, where he and Isabella were playing games.

Phineas walked over to the platypus, who looked up in a panic. "Are you going to explain this to me, now?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

The platypus made his special chattering noise in response.

"Yeah, don't even try it." Phineas hissed. "Because we both know what I saw. I've kept it to myself for now because I'm trying to _let_ you explain, but I can just as easily go tell Ferb and Isabella everything."

The platypus grew even more panicked in response. Finally, he stood up on his hind legs and walked over to the other side of the fridge.

Phineas followed nervously and suspiciously, and then Perry put his paw on a part of the fridge that was blank— until what looked like a DNA scanner appeared and lit up green. The side of the fridge opened, and Perry jumped inside. Phineas followed with a second's hesitation, and after making sure no one had heard the anyway.

The slide that lead to wherever they were going was platypus-sized, so after a couple seconds, Phineas groaned, then climbed up and walked down on the sides of his feet.

When they got to the bottom, there was a tiny door. Perry used another paw print to open that one, and Phineas ducked through into a larger room.

The room was very… British. Not to be stereotypical, but he didn't know how else to describe it. There was a large armchair, with a side table and a cup of tea and crumpets (which Phineas had come to recognize since coming to England), several silhouette paintings of old people, a fireplace, and almost everything was a shade of dark green.

"Wow. Could you be any more obvious?" Phineas asked aloud.

Perry shot a glare over his shoulder. He gestured for Phineas to get out of sight and walked over to the screen at the front of the room.

Phineas ducked behind the armchair as Perry pressed a button and a woman with gray hair and makeup appeared on the screen. "Agent P?" she asked. "Is there something you—"

Perry cut her off by sending her face away.

"Wow." Phineas said, rising up from behind the chair. "Rude much?"

Perry chattered angrily.

"Okay, geez. What's your deal?" Phineas asked.

Perry pointed at the screen, and as Phineas walked over to it Perry rather snootily moved over to the large armchair and sat down in it.

On the screen were a couple various lists of information. Apparently, Perry the Platypus or 'Agent P' was an agent of BOWCA, the British Organization Without a Cool Acronym. He was a solo agent that worked to take down many villains of the agency of Fiendishly Revolting Intelligent Evildoers Nefariously Destroying Serenity, or F.R.I.E.N.D.S. (seriously?), and according to the files, he had defeated many different agents.

When Phineas turned around Perry was holding out a pamphlet. Phineas read it and scanned it over. "So if anyone finds out you're a secret agent, you have to leave?" he asked. "I guess I can get that, protecting your owners and all. So Ferb and Mr. Fletcher don't know?"

Perry shook his head, and made a zipped lips motion.

Phineas rolled his eyes. "Fine, I won't tell anybody. But you should know I'm a terrible liar."

Perry bit his lip and nodded. Then he raised a questioning eyebrow.

"I don't know! I'll just have to— not mention it, and hope no one else does."

Perry slapped his forehead.

"Hey, do you want to get sent away or do you want to take your chances? Unless you can somehow erase my memory?"

Perry rolled his eyes.

"I didn't think so."

"Hey do you want to leave right now, or do you want to take your chances? Besides, who's gonna ask that? 'Hey, Phineas, do you think Perry is a secret agent?' You're a platypus! Who's going to have that train of thought?"

Perry hesitated, then gave in and nodded.

The two left the way they came after making sure no one was there, and Phineas walked into where Ferb and Isabella were sitting while Perry moved over to his food bowl.


	15. Chapter 15

_June 2002_

 _Danville, U.S.A._

"Go ahead Ferb, pick out any pet you want."

Ferb was unsure exactly of how to pick an animal, exactly, mostly because despite what his father said, he was sure the animals in America were _very_ different from the ones back home.

But since Ferb had only mentioned a pet once they had already arrived in America, this was the result.

Ferb gave a tentative look towards the cages on the upper level, a movement his father caught on to and responded to by picking Ferb up and showing him a dog that actually seemed to be looking at him. It was cute at first, but then grew a little unsettling.

Ferb shook his head, and his father put him down. Ferb wandered along the bottom level of pets and noticed a strange teal creature that would have been a platypus if it wasn't so oddly colored. For a second Ferb looked at the creature.

He jumped back when it made a strange chatter with its front teeth. But after starting to move away he paused.

Ferb reached up and touched his hair, then looked at the platypus that had a weird color just like him. He wasn't directly looking at him like the dog was either.

Ferb looked back at his father.

"You want that one?" his father asked. Ferb nodded.

"Is there something I can help you with?" asked a woman as she came up beside Lawrence.

"Oh yes, we'd like that one please."

"You'd like to adopt a platypus?"

"Oh, is that what it's called? Yes, may we have him please?"

"Okay." the woman said, sounding a little surprised. She went and got a carrier from the front of the store and held it to the doorway of the cage as the platypus crawled in. Lawrence took the cage and payed the woman.

Ferb opened the carrier and gave a half-smile as the platypus crawled into his arms and settled down there.

"What do you wanna call him, Ferb?" came the voice of his father.

"Perry." Ferb said quietly but firmly.

The two moved towards the door as another family stepped in.

"Candace!" the boy called. "What pet'chu wanna get?"

"Wait, what do you _mean_ he's going to England?" Major Monogram asked into the phone, standing up at the dinner table and making his plate clatter backwards. His wife gave him a curious look, and he held up a finger and walked into the other room. Having become used to this sort of thing since her husband ran a spy agency, his wife simply went back to dinner.

"We didn't know the boy who bought him was from England, sir." Carl continued from the other side of the line. "We're… going to have to transfer him."

Monogram groaned. "But the B.O.W.C.A. is so… pacified! Their agents are all humans, and they rely on 'coordinates' and 'contacts' and loads of other things that platypus was not trained to need! He was meant to fight someone here in America!"

"I've already started an email explaining all of that to Inspector Initials, sir." Carl said. "We've sent some of our translators over so they can communicate any other details."

"Um, Carl, people in England speak English."

"It's not the same sir. There's things like 'chips' and 'water closet' and other things that could get confusing. It's better to be safe than sorry."

"I can't tell if that's insulting us or them."

"Probably a little of both, sir."

Perry had been reasonably nervous when he had gotten on a plane. But considering his new owner (Ferb) refused to let go of him for the entire flight, Perry could not contact anyone or call for help.

After a while Perry fell asleep (he _was_ still a baby platypus) and woke up to Ferb nudging him.

"Welcome to England." Ferb whispered softly.

 _England?_ Oh no, this was _not_ the plan. What was he supposed to do now?

Ferb seemed to notice the panic flash over Perry's face. He pulled the platypus closer. "It's okay." he whispered. "I know it's probably a little different from what you were expecting."

That was an understatement.

"But I just moved too. I can help you get used to things here. We can get used to it together."

That was missing the point entirely. But given that Perry was freaking out more than a little, and Ferb was doing his best to comfort him (despite not actually knowing how to help), Perry nuzzled closer to Ferb and tucked his head inside the boy's arm. Ferb squeezed Perry back, and Perry looked up again when he heard a car door open.

They were getting inside the backseat of a car. But all three of them— Ferb, Lawrence, and Perry too— were getting in. Perry was confused. From what he'd learned someone had to drive a car. Had humans invented self-driving cars since he'd last checked?

"Okay, where to?"

Perry jumped and shoved his head farther into Ferb's arm.

"It's alright, Perry." Ferb said. "It's just the cab driver."

Perry chattered in a way that was both nervous and a warning. Because right now, he was in a strange place with no nemesis to fight. He had been trained to fight a nemesis, but since there was none here, in that moment Perry decided he would use his energy to protect Ferb instead.

Although he wasn't exactly doing a great job right now, cowering in the crook of Ferb's elbow.

Perry bit his lip and crawled out onto Ferb's lap. He was an agent. He was trained to deal with dangerous situations. When the car started to move, Perry chattered angrily at the "cab driver" a second time.

"Perry, it's okay." Ferb said, stroking the back of Perry's head.

Perry still refused to move his glare from the front and the cab driver until the car eventually stopped moving. He blinked and looked around to find that the car had stopped in front of a small building that seemed to be about two stories high. Ferb picked up Perry and exited the car. And Perry, for one, was glad to leave the dangerous stranger behind.

Lawrence, carrying both a larger and smaller suitcase, walked up to the front door and opened it with a key.

Ferb immediately ran inside and set Perry on the couch.

Perry was unsure what exactly Ferb was doing, because all that happened next was he ran up and towards the steps. Perry jumped off and ran after him, because he had made a (very unofficial) promise in the cab to protect Ferb, and he didn't want him getting hurt while Perry wasn't around.

When Perry caught up with him Ferb was in his room grabbing what looked like tools. But when he turned around and noticed Perry was there he looked surprised.

"You want me to build your bed in here?" Ferb asked.

 _Build_ his bed? He must mean just put his bed in here, because a 3-year-old was incapable of building a bed. Perry nodded in response anyway.

But to Perry's shock, Ferb took a spare bucket of scrap materials and began to _build a bed._ He actually meant he was going to build it.

Oh, no. If any evil scientist found out about this, Perry didn't want to think of what might happen to Ferb.

Perhaps he _was_ meant to protect this boy.

When Ferb finished, a small, but rather luxurious bed was sitting on the windowsill of one of the two windows.

Perry walked over and jumped into the bed to try it out. It _was_ luxurious. He was going to like this bed very much.

Just then Lawrence called Ferb down for dinner, and Ferb grabbed Perry and carried him with him.

Well, maybe he would like it very much later.


	16. Chapter 16

_Ferb Fletcher_

 _June 15, 2013_

 _London, England_

After the Great Rollercoaster Reveal of 2013, Buford had changed exactly not at all, which surprised no one.

The next time they went to a service project (they always seemed to be in parks, which Ferb couldn't understand), he was as rude and annoying as ever.

The real differences were Baljeet and Gretchen, who came over to join the group for lunch and seemed almost like completely different people.

Gretchen was banned from the Fireside girls.

Both Phineas and Isabella had tried to apologize numerous times, always to be cut off by Gretchen herself. "You guys are more fun anyway." she would say.

Baljeet and Gretchen still denied whenever anyone mentioned how obviously he and Gretchen enjoyed each other's company. "We are just study partners who happen to be in the same friend group." Baljeet would say.

"I mean, it's not like I think they like each other or anything," Isabella would mention later. "But it's weird how they still refuse to acknowledge that they're friends."

But by far the most humorous part of it all was when everyone discovered that Isabella qualified for the Fireside Girls' Explosion Patch.

Baljeet was curiously questioning why such a thing existed as Isabella was sitting proudly at the kitchen table next to Phineas, who was as red as a tomato and had his in his hands. Ferb was fighting back laughing at _that_ sight.

Phineas strange behavior from a while back seemed to have slipped everyone's minds until later in the evening of the 15 of July.

They were sitting in the living room, discussing an idea Phineas had come up with involving giant water slides and fingerpaints, when he suddenly sat up very quickly with an alarmed look on his face.

"What?" Ferb asked, looking over his shoulder, but the only thing there was Perry.

"Nothing." Phineas said, although he didn't look at Isabella or him. "I'll be right back." He got up and walked into the kitchen with Perry close behind him.

Ferb and Isabella shared a curious glance, but ultimately went back to the idea.

"Should we add the feathers above or below the peanut butter?" Isabella asked.

"I don't think the peanut butter's likely to drip down, and the feathers getting stuck would ruin the whole thing. We should definitely put them below. That way if one or two feathers fall off it's not a big deal." Ferb said with a shrug.

" _As_ big a deal." Isabella pointed out. "If more than three feathers fall, that ruins the whole thing too."

"But not as much as them sticking to the peanut butter would."

Isabella paused as she considered this. "Fair point. But then _what_ are we going to do about the ceiling fan?"

" _Guys!"_ Phineas screamed from the kitchen. Both of them jerked upwards in surprise and turned to where he was standing looking over his shoulder. " _We need to get out of here now!"_

"What?" Isabella asked. "Why? What's going on?"

Phineas reached behind him and grabbed Perry, running into the living room. "Where's the teleporter?!"

"Where it always is?" Ferb said questioningly, pointing to it. Phineas grabbed both of their arms and dragged them over.

"Your dad's out for the night, right?" he questioned, frantically putting coordinates into the teleporter.

"Yes, but why does it matter?"

In response, Phineas jerked both Isabella and him onto the teleporter and squeezed Perry to the point of suffocation. He bounced anxiously back and forth on his feet as the teleporter warmed up.

"Phineas, what's going on?" Isabella asked.

Phineas did not answer as finally, the teleporter warmed up all the way. But just as the three were about to disappear, there was a loud roar, and what looked like a wall of fire came from the direction of the kitchen.

Somewhere in the back of Ferb's mind it registered that that was an explosion, and then the entire house vanished around them, the teleporter placing them inside Big Ben on the well-known platform, with the kick from whatever the hell had just happened shoving the three of them back against the wall.

When Ferb glanced around, still in shock, the three of them looked very much worse for wear. There would be many bruises and cuts that would not heal quickly.

"Phineas, what exploded?!" Isabella yelled.

Oh yeah. She'd seen those before.

"Okay for once, this wasn't my fault." Phineas explained, using the wall to pull himself up. "Someone put a bomb in the kitchen."

"Why on _earth_ would someone do that?!" Isabella said, still sounding just as angry/disbelieving/shocked.

Ferb was still trying to adjust to whatever the heck had just happened, as unlike Isabella, he'd never seen an explosion before. Was the ringing in his ears normal?

In response to Isabella's question Phineas glanced behind him, where Perry was.

"Perry?" Phineas said nervously. "I think we have some explaining to do."

"What?" Ferb asked.

Phineas turned back to him, looking nervous and guilty. "Don't be mad, okay? Just hear me out."

"What are you talking about?" Ferb asked, now more suspicious than ever.

Phineas glanced back at Perry one more time.

The next second Perry's face took on the most human look Ferb had ever seen on him— on _any_ animal. He sheepishly stood up _on his hind legs_ and shared a look with Phineas.

A look that very clearly said ' _Go ahead.'_

"Phineas, what's going on?" Ferb asked, having gotten over his shock and now giving Phineas a very suspicious look.

Phineas swallowed. "Okay. Let me start by saying that F.R.I.E.N.D.S. are not always a good thing."


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: The next two chapters are very short as well as being two sides to the same story (in a sense) so I am going to publish them together.**

 _June 2000_

 _Danville, U.S.A._

"… _And that's it."_ Isabella said in Spanish into the phone. She had finished explaining to Stephanie the situation, and was now awaiting her best friend's response (also in Spanish).

Stephanie replied pretty quickly. " _Well it seems to me like the answer is pretty obvious. I mean, do you remember rule #2 of the Good Person Protocol?"_

" _I should."_ Isabella said sheepishly. " _I wrote it."_

" _Then what is it?"_

" _Don't play it safe, I know."_ Isabella said. " _I get it. Phineas prob'bly needs a friend more than Katie."_

" _So did you call me because you wanted confirmation? You know the rules! We made them together!"_

" _I know."_ Isabella said, biting her lip. She felt much more sure of herself all of a sudden. Maybe she really had called to get co-firmation. Stephanie had always been much more conf'dent about this stuff than her. " _Okay. I can do this. Imma go talk to Phineas right now."_

" _That's the spirit!"_ Stephanie said. " _Now don't wait until you have another problem to call me. I like to talk to you."_

" _Me too, Steph'nie. I'll call you soon."_

" _Bye."_

Isabella hung up the phone with new resolve. She could do this.

"Mamá!" Isabella called. "I'm gonna go see Phineas!"

"Ok! Be back before dinner!"

Isabella skipped out the front door, remembering to look left, right, left, and then crossed the street, still skipping, and went into her neighbor's backyard.

Phineas was drawing something in a sketchbook underneath his tree. He looked up in surprise when Isabella came in.

"What are you doing here?" he said quietly.

"Mamá said I could come play." Isabella said happily.

"But… you talked to Katie." Phineas said, as if that proved something.

"So what? I like playing with _you_." Isabella said. "Whatcha doin'?"

Phineas blushed and hid his sketchbook close to his chest.

"Aw, cummon, can't I see?"

Phineas glanced nervously over at her, biting his lip, then set the sketchbook down in the grass, showing what he had been drawing.

It was a design for a massive playground.

" _Woah!_ That looks amazing!" Isabella said, grabbing the sketchbook and turning it around so that she could see it better. "I mean look at that slide! It's _huge!_ And those swings! Can they really launch you into the pool? Wait. Oh. My. Gosh! That's my backyard isn't it?! That's _my_ pool! You designed a giant playground with _my pool!"_

Isabella grabbed Phineas into one of her signature bear hugs. Phineas looked shocked into silence— even more silence than usual.

"Why didn't you show me this stuff before?! This is so amazing! _You're_ so amazing! You're amazing!"

She let go and went back to the design, pointing out parts she liked and things that were inconsistent with her backyard.

Eventually, Phineas was grinning and writing notes in the margins, changing bits and pieces, and he even made a joke.

By the time the two were really getting going, Isabella had decided she would definitely like spending time with Phineas more than she would Katie— and not just because of the Good Person Protocol.

"Isabella!" came a familiar voice. Isabella turned around quickly to see the person running up to greet her at the playground. Phineas turned around too, but much more slowly.

"Why are you still playing with him?" Katie asked. "I told you he blows stuff up."

"No, he does _cool_ stuff." Isabella corrected. "Besides, I don't mind blowing up every now and then. It adds to the fun."

Katie gawked after them as Isabella and Phineas walked off with his ball.

"You lied to her." Phineas pointed out. "You would mind blowing up."

"Maybe a little. But it doesn't mean I don't want to spend time with you. You do really amazing stuff, with or without the blowing up." _And you're really cute,_ she added in her head.

"But isn't lying against Good Person Protocol?"

Isabella blinked in surprise, then laughed. She really liked his jokes. "I'll make an exception _just_ this once." she eventually decided. "But only for you."

 _Phineas Flynn_

 _June 15, 2013_

 _London, England_

"…But if you had found out, Perry would have had to leave. _That_ is why we didn't tell you." Phineas finished.

His gaze remained anxiously on Ferb, whose expression had not changed for the past minute and a half.

He had been understandably nervous when Perry, hind legs and all, had gestured frantically to him from the kitchen. And when he got there and saw a bomb blinking silently in the middle of the floor, he had been (also understandably) panicked.

Whoever put that there obviously knew where he was supposed to look, which meant either he or Perry had screwed up big time (probably him, if you looked at his track record).

And on top of feeling guilty about whatever he'd done, he also had to explain to one of his best friends why he'd been lying to him for the past ten days… which, admittedly, wasn't a long time, but the size of the secret made it a bigger deal.

Finally, Ferb spoke. "I can take care of myself." he said quietly.

"Huh?" Phineas asked. That had not been what he was expecting.

"I'm not helpless. Do you think if someone came to threaten me for some reason I wouldn't be able to handle it? Is that honestly the impression you've gotten of me over the summer?"

"Well— no, but—"

"But what?" Ferb asked. "He's my pet. I bought him to have a _pet,_ not a secret agent using me as a cover."

"I don't think he wanted to—"

"Did you ever plan on telling me?" Ferb asked in a dangerously quiet voice. "Or did you just intend to leave at the end of summer having told a _massive_ lie of omission? To both me _and_ Isabella?"

Isabella laughed nervously and backed away. "Leave me out of this please."

"I only meant—"

"Well _whatever_ you meant, you didn't do a very good job. My whole bloody _house_ was just _blown up!"_

Phineas flinched.

" _What are we supposed to do now?!"_ Ferb hissed. " _Where are we supposed to go?_ How _am I supposed to explain this to my father?!"_

Phineas heard a familiar chatter from behind him, and Perry stepped in front of Phineas, spreading his arms.

"Oh, don't think I'm not pissed at _you_ too, Perry _."_ Ferb spat. "You haven't exactly been trustworthy _ever."_

Perry set a firm glare over his brow and chattered angrily himself.

Phineas backed up around Ferb and Perry, getting dangerously close to the edge of the platform they were on.

"Phineas!" Isabella called.

Phineas spared her half a glance, and then did what he always did whenever something involving an invention made him insecure— he ran.

Isabella moved towards the edge of the platform to try and stop him from leaving, but Phineas slipped from her grasp and made his way as quickly as he could through the inner workings of the clock.

It took him all of two minutes to make it out of Big Ben, but as he ran past the Thames he ran smack dab into the last person he wanted to see right now.

"What do you want, Screwy?" Buford snapped, stepped closer and closer until Phineas could smell his breath.

Phineas tried to double around him and keep running, but Buford sidestepped and got in his way.

Phineas felt tears welling up in his eyes and looked down to try and stop them from escaping—

Hands snapped around his wrists from behind.

Oh, he was such an _idiot._ Obviously whoever had bombed his house would have found out they weren't dead, and followed them.

"Woah, hey—" Buford said in shock. "What the—"

Someone quickly moved around and grabbed Buford's wrists too.

To his credit, Buford fought back remarkably hard. But the guy he was fighting against was three times bigger than him, and quickly apprehended him.

Phineas quickly looked around for someone to call to for help— but amazingly, they were alone.

Someone brought a fist to the side of Phineas' head, and he blinked, trying to shake off the wooziness it brought on.

But when someone punched him in the same spot a second time, he felt the entire world blink out.


	18. Chapter 18

_June 2002_

 _London, England_

Perry was looking at the face of a middle-aged woman who said her name was Inspector Initials, who was currently in the process of explaining everything to him— the mix-up, the transfer, the way things would be run a little differently with him.

But Perry was still mainly wanting to know what would happen with Ferb and Lawrence Fletcher.

His questions were answered in the next second:

"You will remain with this current host family—"

Perry felt relief swell in his chest. He would still be able to protect Ferb.

"—Now, we've heard that you were trained to fight one nemesis, but that is not the way things work over here. We will need a couple weeks to re-train you a bit to work with more than one fighting style."

Perry bit his lip to keep from finding some way to say that he _already_ knew more than one fighting style. He may have gotten to know Major Monogram, but this woman _was_ now his superior.

It was going to take some getting used to.

At the end of his briefing, Perry was sent home. He made sure to put on a mindless pet persona before entering.

"Oh, there you are Perry." Lawrence said as the platypus walked into the kitchen by his food bowl— the B.O.W.C.A. had not provided a lunch break.

Ferb ran into the other room. "Perry, I was worried!"

Perry gave as reassuring a chatter as he could in this state.

Ferb scooped Perry into his arms and gave him a huge bear hug, and in that moment, Perry was immensely disappointed that his mission was not to protect Ferb. Because the one thing he was not looking forward to was Ferb having to get used to him being gone everyday.

He wanted to stay here with the boy, as he was obviously not very used to having much companionship. Perry could have helped him with that. He could have bit people's ankles and dragged Ferb over to other kids his age. He could have met other pets instead of working solely with the humans of B.O.W.C.A. But unfortunately for Perry, that was not the lifestyle he was trained for.

He also knew agents (at least the ones back home) were not supposed to see their host family as anything other than a host family.

He didn't care.

Perry stuck to Ferb like glue for the rest of the night, and instead of sleeping in the bed Ferb had made for him, he crawled into the bed with Ferb and nuzzled up to his side.

Ferb hugged Perry to him without hesitation.

It had occurred to Perry that he had Ferb had most likely bonded out of fear— Ferb was a naturally nervous 3-year-old, and Perry had been an agent in a place he didn't belong. But as Perry's fear was temporary, and Ferb's was not, Perry felt a natural (and strong) urge to protect him.

And if that need to protect him caused him to do something drastic, like, oh, skip an unimportant mission or two…

He would. For Ferb.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Okay, I was wrong.** _ **This one**_ **is the 'other side to the same story' I was talking about (because I can't keep track of my own fanfiction now). You still got two chapters though.**

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _June 15, 2013_

 _London, England_

As soon as Phineas left the platform, Isabella seemed to regain about all of her confidence.

She turned to Ferb. "Go after him." she said, pointing.

"What?" Ferb asked in surprise.

"Were you listening to what you said?" Isabella asked. "Do you know how much saying that would hurt him?"

"Wha— hurt him? He just blew up my house!"

"No, Ferb." Isabella said. "That was that F.R.I.E.N.D.S. corporation. He just explained everything. I know why you're upset, but…"

Ferb saw Isabella hesitate before she spoke again.

"You've only known him for a month and a half, Ferb, so I can understand that you don't know this… but it wasn't just Django and Buford. _Plenty_ of people have been friends with him for a couple weeks, or even months, and then left the first time something exploded because they were scared, or angry, or something else. And then you go and yell at him about your house blowing up."

"But I didn't mean—"

"I know you didn't, but he's not going to see it that way! Ferb, it's not his opinion of you, it's a reflection of his experiences. His whole life. Why do you think Candace is so overprotective of him, or that _so many people_ ostracize me solely for the fact that I'm _friends_ with him, let alone his girlfriend! Do you know how few people he actually gets as close to as he does you and me? Ferb, Phineas buries a lot of his negative emotions so other people can't see them, but he can get hurt _very easily_ with touchy subjects like that. You've seen him with Buford. You know what I'm talking about."

Ferb's gaze drifted to Perry, who had been silent (in his own way) in the background the whole time. Perry lifted a finger and pointed at himself, and somehow Ferb got what he was saying:

 _Be mad at_ me.

Ferb bit his lip, realizing for the first time that yeah, maybe he was a little harsh. Especially given this was Phineas, and explosions were to be expected. The fact that he hadn't had one until this point did not mean one would never happen.

With a guilty sigh, Ferb moved over to the edge of the platform and followed where Phineas had gone a couple minutes ago. He moved fairly fast, as if he lost Phineas this time he had no idea where he would go.

By the time he made it to the bottom of the clock, he was certain Phineas could not have gotten far.

And he was right— because Phineas was getting thrown into a helicopter. Along with (he never would have guessed) a struggling _Buford._

"Phineas!" Ferb yelled. Behind him came Perry's chatter. Ferb whirled around to see Perry already bounding toward the helicopter, but he didn't appear to be fast enough, because before he got there the helicopter lifted off and flew away.

"Phineas!" Isabella yelled from behind him. It seemed they had both followed him down.

Ferb turned a determined gaze on Perry. "Where are they going?"

They did not end up going straight to F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Instead, they went to the B.O.W.C.A., which was Perry's secret agent organization.

After a quick conversation between the three of them about the fact that at this point, Perry's cover was more or less blown, all three of them went to talk to Inspector Initials.

She sounded, originally, very shocked and confused, although that could be more because Ferb and Isabella were both trying to explain at once. Eventually Perry stopped them both. He walked over to Inspector Initials desk and pulled a card out of a drawer. He handed the card that said 'Code Blue' to Inspector Initials, and she sighed.

"Oh, Lord. Who did they take?" the Inspector asked, putting a hand on her forehead.

"Phineas!" Ferb and Isabella said at the same time.

Inspector Initials paused. "Phineas? Phineas Flynn? As in the boy who was staying here for the summer?"

Ferb nodded.

"Well— that doesn't make any sense. Phineas Flynn is not connected with us in any way…"

"I think he was after all of us, ma'am." Isabella said. "Or— after Perry. They were trying to get to him."

"Hmm." Inspector Initials rubbed her forehead. "Well, I hate to break this to you, but Phineas is not affiliated with us. We can't send people after him or we'll face numerous risks."

" _What?!"_ Isabella screamed. "You're supposed to _protect_ people!"

"We're supposed to protect the people from _this_ country. Phineas is a tourist. Contact the O.W.C.A. in America. They can do something."

" _F.R.I.E.N.D.S._ is _your_ responsibility!" snapped Ferb. "They're _here in England_ and everything! This is _your fault!"_

" _Excuse_ me?" Inspector Initials asked, standing to make herself taller than Ferb (an impressive feat).

Ferb pointed at Perry. " _He_ is one of your agents, _you_ should have been looking out for threats against him! So yeah, I'd say this is _your fault!_ And even if that wasn't true, the organization you're supposed to fight just blew up my _bloody house_ and _kidnapped_ my best friend! Yes, you're supposed to _do something!_ _**Morally!**_ "

At some point Ferb had expected Perry to cut him off and tell him to be quiet, but when he looked down, Perry looked just as angry as he did. Unfortunately, he was unable to speak, so he just walked forward and gestured angrily at the 'Code Blue' card.

"I am sorry, but—"

Perry shoved her to the side and walked around to the other side of the desk. He grabbed a cell phone and began to type out a message on it.

Inspector Initials blinked in surprise.

"Um— what are you doing, Perry?" Isabella asked.

Perry finished whatever he was doing on the phone, then turned and walked back over to Ferb and Isabella, grabbing them both by the arms and marching angrily out of the office.

As soon as the door closed after them, he turned in a completely opposite direction and marched down another hallway away from the office.

Ferb and Isabella followed, though neither were quite sure what he was doing.

"Perry?" Ferb asked.

Perry opened a door after scanning his pawprint, and the three of them walked into the room.

"Woah…" Ferb whispered.

"We're in Phineas' version of heaven." Isabella said in awe.

In front of them was a room full of gadgets and weapons of all kinds, seeming to get more and more sophisticated as they went down the line.

Perry turned to them and grinned.

"What?" Ferb asked.

Commander Carl glanced at his cell phone when it _binged_ three times with long tones— that was the signal for an urgent message.

When he picked it up, it read as from Inspector Initials— the head of the B.O.W.C.A. over in London.

"Wow. We haven't had contact with her in years." Carl muttered. He picked up the phone… and the message was not at all what he expected.

 _Carl, this is Perry the Platypus._

"Perry… oh, platypus. He must be that agent we transferred all those years ago." Carl realized.

 _A tourist over here was kidnapped by F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Inspector Initials is being a—_

"Wow."

— _And is refusing to help. Please send someone from over there. If you refuse as well get_ someone _who has a moral code._

Carl pressed a button on his intercom. "Irving, who can we send over to England?"

"Pardon, sir?"

Irving was Commander Carl's unpaid intern. If Carl was honest with himself, he probably handled a lot of things that Carl had not had to do when he filled that role, and Carl would be lost without him.

"England. Do we have any agents off today?"

"Um…" Carl was silent as Irving rustled through papers. "No, sir. All the agents are on mission today. We can free someone up in a couple of hours—"

"No, the message was urgent. He needs someone over there quickly."

"'He' sir?"

"Nevermind that." Carl dismissed. He tried to run over everyone in his head. As Irving had said, all the agents were out on mission, and neither he nor Irving could go, they needed to run things here.

Carl paused as someone crossed his mind. "Huh." he muttered to himself, rubbing his chin. "Well, we certainly haven't seen him in a while, but I'm not entirely sure we can trust him…"

He set his finger on the intercom again. "Irving, get one of our tracking bugs, and… call Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated."


	20. Chapter 20

_July 2007_

 _Danville, U.S.A._

"Hey." came a voice. "Can we sit here?"

Both Phineas and Isabella turned to see a kid with brown wavy hair standing next to Buford, who was eyeing them both with suspicion.

The two shared a surprised look.

"Uh, sure." Isabella said.

Buford scooted the chair farther away from them, but the other kid took the chair right next to Phineas. "Hi. My name's Django, curious artsy weirdo. Why does everyone call you the walking disaster?"

"I think it would be better if you added a jump." Django pointed out. "You know, between the two water slides."

Phineas blinked. "You don't think that seems a little dangerous? My inventions do have a tendency to fall apart, you know."

"Well what's life without a little risk?" Django asked.

"He's got a point." Buford muttered. "Sometimes the danger factor adds to the fun. I should know, I spend time with you losers."

Django laughed.

"That was a joke?" Isabella whispered to Phineas. He shrugged.

Phineas turned back to the blueprints. "Okay." he said. "Adding the jump."

"Okay, I'll admit, in terms of… 'enjoyableness…' this one's not so bad." Buford said.

"Aw, did Buford like the pizza?" Isabella asked.

"You better believe Buford liked the pizza." Buford said, crossing his arms. "But why 'Bucky's?' That's not a name that matches up with the fanciness of the restaurant."

"Bucky was my dog." Phineas explained. "I named it in his honor."

"Oh, his _honor_. Okay, Mr. Namby-Pamby."

"Here comes Candace." Django said.

"Well, it looks like she missed her 'bust' once again." Isabella said with a shrug.

"Wha—no! It was _right here! It was right here!"_

"Okay kids, who wants pizza?" Linda asked.

"Buford can never have enough pizza." Buford said determinedly, walking towards the house.

The whole group was starting to get curious glances in the hallways. No one else knew what exactly they did all the time that was so fun, but more and more people seemed to be wanting in, even if they refused to admit it.

"Give them time." Django said. "They'll come around."

And of course people noticed their incredibly loud lunch conversations.

"Wait, you used to be _shy?"_ Django asked in amazement.

Phineas groaned.

"Oh yeah." Buford said. "In Preschool, you said three words to the kid and he wilted."

"When did _that_ change?"

Isabella cleared her throat. "You're welcome."

Phineas shot her a glare, and she grinned right back, then leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the nose, making him go bright red and bury his head in his hands.

"Aw, you're so _cute_ when you're blushing." Isabella said, folding her hands.

"You're all dead to me." Phineas said, his voice muffled.

The car had not been even been scratched. "See?" Phineas said. "It's perfectly safe."

"I don't know…"

"Oh, come on, Isabella." Django said. " _You're_ scared? You've dealt with every invention-related disaster there is."

"Yeah, come on, Izzy. It'll be fine." Buford said. He smirked. "Or are you just chicken?"

"I most certainly am _not."_ Isabella protested. "It's just… tall."

"Fine, you want me to prove it? I'll go first." Django said. "All by myself."

"Wait, what?" Buford protested. "Come on, I wanna go too. If it can hold me then it can hold anyone."

"We've already established it can hold you. You sat in it the whole time it was being built. Other than helping, I might add." Django said.

Buford stuck his tongue out.

"Besides, I've always wanted to ride a rollercoaster by myself." Django said, his face lighting up in anticipation. "And then I can prove it to Isabella."

Isabella groaned. " _Fine,_ we'll all just go."

"No. No way. You are not taking this away from me."

Isabella sighed. "Fine, go on."

Phineas moved over to the controls as Django climbed into the front and fastened the buckle, then pulled the metal bar down.

Phineas glanced over. "You ready, Django?" he called.

"Let's do this!" Django yelled, sounding ready to get going.

"Just set it on it's way so we can all go, Dinner Bell." Buford said impatiently.

Phineas laughed. "Alright, here we go." he reached for the microphone and did his best impression of an amusement park driver. " _Please keep your hands and head inside the car at all times."_

Isabella laughed, looking much more reassured.

Phineas hit the controls, sending the singular car up the track.

Django cheered. Phineas turned and looked up with a grin.

"Um, Phineas? What's that?" came Isabella's voice.

Phineas turned back to the controls to see one of them sparking. His eyes widened. "Something's wrong. I'm bringing him back down."

But even as he moved to do so, the rest of the controls started sparking.

"Phineas?!" Isabella yelled.

Phineas moved to yank a lever back but heard a scream overhead. Everyone looked up to see a red and yellow rollercoaster car plummeting towards them.

" _DJANGO!"_ Phineas screamed.

The car hit the ground a second later. All three of them raced for the car and looked inside.

Django was not moving.

Buford had not looked at Phineas in the past hour.

Isabella had not stopped.

As soon as Candace had heard screaming, she'd rushed outside, and as soon as she'd seen the scene before her, she'd run inside and called an ambulance.

Phineas spent the ride to the hospital (with Candace illegally driving) trying to convince himself that Django would be fine.

Buford had said nothing since screaming in the backyard, and Phineas had seen more than one hateful glare casted towards him. Each one made him feel worse.

When they made it to hospital Isabella must have sensed how horrible Phineas was feeling, because she'd grabbed his hand the moment they stepped out of the car and had not let go yet.

Now, they were waiting in the hospital waiting room. Candace had called their mother and gotten voicemail, but she'd said where they were and why.

Now her phone rang again and Candace picked up.

"Mom!" she paused. " _What?!_ Mom, I'm not joking! Mom!" Candace stormed out of the waiting room with her phone in hand, just as a doctor was coming out a door on the other side.

The three children both looked up anxiously as the doctor moved over to them.

 _Oh, please say he will be fine._

"Django will live." the doctor said.

 _That's not what I meant!_

"But…"

 _No…_

"He has lost the use of his legs."

 _No._

"I'd really like to speak to his parent or guardian, are they here?" the doctor asked curiously. Phineas was still trying to figure out how he was so calm.

"He's on his way."

To Phineas' surprise it was Buford who had spoken.

"Can we go see him?" Isabella asked.

"I don't think it would be best. He needs rest right now."

Phineas realized he was staring at the ground.

This was not how he had pictured this day going.

He should have known by now.

Phineas never got to speak to Django. The one time he tried his father said he didn't want anything to do with him, and Django's face in the background proved him right.

Isabella had not stopped coming over every day, but Phineas had stopped building things in the backyard.

The only time Phineas had tried to go see Buford he had ended up coming home with a black eye.

Phineas did not go see Buford anymore.

Linda was still trying to adapt to the fact that her son had been doing all of this without her knowing. And Candace, to Phineas' surprise, was not rubbing the victory in his face.

He was still not sure why _that_ was.

It should be noted that Phineas did not cry often, and _especially_ not in front of people.

Not that he was in front of people right now. He was lucky the judge had called a break when he had, because Phineas had felt like he was going to lose it for the past 15 minutes or so.

Right now he was in a bathroom stall trying to keep his emotions in check.

"Phineas?" came a familiar voice.

Candace _would_ be the one to come into the boys' bathroom.

"Phineas, they're calling everyone back in."

Phineas sniffed and hiccuped.

"Phineas?" Candace asked. "Are you in there?"

She knocked on the door of the stall he was in.

"No." Phineas said, realizing a little too late that saying anything proved he was in fact in there.

Candace reached underneath the stall door with one of her (practically) contortionist arms and unlocked the stall door. Phineas did not move from his spot against the bordering wall.

His older sister knelt down and sat down next to him. "Phineas." she whispered.

Phineas scooted away.

Candace reached over and wrapped Phineas in a (remarkably rare) brother-sister hug. Phineas buried his head in her side.

"Hey." Candace said. "Hey. It's gonna be okay."

"No it's not!"

Candace paused, realizing he was probably right.

" _You're_ gonna be okay. You're gonna make it through this."

"Django hates me." Phineas said, and immediately scolded himself, because he sounded like a 13-year-old girl.

"Django should have known."

Phineas paused in shock. " _What?"_

"Django has been your friend for months on end now. He knows the rumors. He knows the stories. No one should expect to be your friend and not expect to have some kind of invention go _wrong_ at least once. That is a _ridiculous_ standard. For any inventor, not just you."

"But—"

"But nothing. I'm wrong about a lot, but not this time."

"You've never said that before."

"The part about being wrong?"

Phineas shook his head, although that was also true. "The part about ridiculous standards." He hesitated. "You really think I'm an inventor?"

"Best damn inventor in the world."

Phineas shook his head again. "Surely _that's_ not true."

"It is to me." Candace said.

And court case be damned, the two sat there against the wall in the boys bathroom for the next half hour, not making a sound.


	21. Chapter 21

_Phineas Flynn_

 _Date Unknown_

 _Location Unknown_

Phineas Flynn was pretty sure the universe hated him.

He woke up in a cell that looked like it was from some old crummy action movie. Buford was sitting across from him and was already awake, looking incredibly pissed (whether or not it was at him, Phineas was not sure).

He had what he imagined a hangover would feel like pounding through his skull. When he touched the part that was bothering him he felt something sticky tracking up into his hair that he was pretty sure was not honey.

And then of course there was the fact that someone had just kidnapped him.

Well… maybe not _just_ kidnapped him. What time was it?

"Ah, so the Sleeping Beauty awakens."

This was the _last thing_ he needed right now.

Phineas went through his head trying to remember if anyone had seen them get grabbed. But he thought the street had been empty, which was amazing considering it was one of the busiest streets in London. Maybe F.R.I.E.N.D.S. had pulled some strings.

But surely Ferb and Isabella would notice he was gone when they went back— No. The house was gone. And Ferb had been really angry last time they'd spoken.

 _Okay, slow down. It's not like he hates you._

… _Right?_

 _Well… he did sound really angry. Explosions are pretty much how everyone else decides they can't stand you._

 _Well… that and rollercoasters._

 _Of course he hates you. Everyone ends up hating you. That's how your life works. They like you for a few months and then they stay far away from you._

Phineas dragged his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them, trying to calm himself down with breathing.

"Oh, look." Buford said. "Mr. Genius can't find a way out of this one. Big surprise."

Phineas did not cry often (he hadn't even cried when he told Ferb about the Rollercoaster), but when he did cry, he was not quiet.

So you could bet Buford heard when he started sobbing into his knees.

That was about the last thing Buford had expected. For a second he stared at him, trying to comprehend what he was seeing, because Phineas Flynn did not cry.

He got pissed sometimes, he got pissed at _him_ sometimes, and sometimes he even told him to fuck off, but he didn't _cry_. The last time he had seen him cry was…. Oh. Something must have been seriously wrong. Worse than kidnapping, that was for sure.

"Uh… you okay?" Buford asked. There was no possible way to have made him sound more awkward.

Phineas did not reply.

Buford glanced around, trying to think of something to say or do. If nothing else, then just so the damn kid would be _quiet_ again.

Nothing came to mind.

How do you comfort the kid you hate with everything you have?

"Uh… what's wrong?" Buford asked hesitantly.

"Is that a question for me or you?" Phineas asked, sounding miserable, but also like he wanted to ignore the fact that he was crying at all.

Personally, Buford didn't think that was healthy. Mental-wise.

"Uh… that's, uh… a question for you?"

"You still sound unsure. You've said 'uh' like 5 times."

"Wha— oh come on. Give me something."

"Why do you even care?"

"Because you're crying, and it's loud and annoying."

"Well, sorry to ruin your silence."

And after that, it really was quieter, with a sniff from Phineas every now and then.

"Why'd those guys kidnap us anyway?"

"Because they were trying to hurt Ferb's pet platypus who is secretly a secret agent for this company called the British Organization Without a Cool Acronym."

There was about 10 seconds of silence.

"Did you even hear the words just coming out of your mouth?"

"Yes Buford, I know how weird it sounds, but you've never even met Perry, so get over it."

Buford grumbled unintelligible words under his breath, and sat back against the cell wall with a huff. "Well these guys are seriously professional about their kidnappings."

"They're a supervillain organization, Buford. Of course they are."

Buford snorted, more in surprise than in amusement.

And then it was silent for another half hour. Eventually it got to Buford, and he had to fill it again.

"This is all your fault." he grumbled.

"What?" Phineas asked. "How is it my fault?"

"Because it always is?"

Phineas was quiet for ten seconds, trying not to snap. "Well." he said quietly. "That was about the most assholeish over-generalized comment I've ever heard."

" _What?!"_

"How the _hell_ is it my fault that Ferb's pet is a secret agent who made some enemies? Coming here, meeting Ferb, _and_ Perry, that was _entirely_ the coincidences of life. It wasn't fate, or destiny, and it certainly wasn't anyone's _fault."_

"Oh come on. You're always at fault somewhere. Look at the rollercoaster."

Maybe it was the fragility of Phineas' current emotions, or the worry about another close friend probably hating him now, or maybe it was ludicrousy of their situation, but he did not shrink back into himself like he usually would have.

"Ah, yes, the rollercoaster. Do you find a way to bring that into every conversation? You don't get it, do you? It's not about the rollercoaster. It was _never_ about the rollercoaster. My inventions blow up. They fall apart. They don't work. The fact that the rollercoaster doing that caused some damage is just— bad luck!"

" _Excuse_ me?"

"You heard me. Do you think I would have built a rollercoaster had Django not come to town? Of course not! Because there were risks, and it was dangerous, _and he knew that getting on there!"_

Buford didn't look like he was quite sure what to do with this little speech.

" _You two_ were the ones who reacted badly! I did everything right. I sent it on a test run. I was bringing Django back down the _minute_ I noticed something was wrong. I just wasn't fast enough."

"You— that is hardly— he will _never_ walk again!"

"And I will never stop feeling guilty for that. But it certainly does not warrant harassment for the rest of my life."

" _Harassment?!"_

"Yeah. Did you even see me as a human, or was I just 'the fault' of your best friend getting hurt, and something for you to take your anger out on? I'm not a punching bag, Buford! I'm a person, and you're a bully and an asshole."

Phineas and Buford did not speak again.


	22. Chapter 22

_November 2007_

 _London, England_

Why did other people in his class think school was so hard?

They would complain about the difficult homework last night and groan about how much they got, while Ferb was reading Jane Eyre and puzzling over what homework they were talking about, because the homework he got was always finished in less than ten minutes, no matter what it was.

His father had tried to get permission for Ferb to skip a grade (though that was not really allowed), but, like expected, Ferb was not allowed to move on. His father could not homeschool him, as he had to work to support them both.

And thus, Ferb was stuck in the same level with everyone else, and was bored out of his mind.

His father always tried to grab more sophisticated books whenever he had the chance— both fiction, nonfiction, and even a high school textbook every now and then.

So Ferb got home from school everyday, did his busy work, and then picked up whatever was currently his "assignment" and started on that. Perry would either already be home, or almost home (meaning he would get there in about 15 minutes), and then he would wander over to wherever Ferb was and snuggle up to his side just before taking a nap.

Today, Ferb was doing some math work his father had managed to grab from the University of London, while Perry was making chattering noises whenever he was wrong (how he knew, Ferb had no idea).

Ferb was always making various things for Perry, and improving them all the time. Ever since the bed on the first day, Ferb had made him his food bowl so one would not have to be bought, and a litterbox for the same reason. Whenever there was something wrong with anything he built, Ferb would find the problem and fix it within a day (and if it was the litterbox that had something wrong with it, he would wear gloves).

Ferb's inventions were usually very practical, only building them when the situation called for it— new lightbulbs that could last for hundreds of years, a stronger water pipe, a bedroom that was bigger on the inside (courtesy of Doctor Who), and a refrigerator that could keep food in its natural state without having to freeze it and lower it's overall quality.

However, every now and then he would build something just for fun. He made the waterslides in some nearby water parks (they tried to get away with paying him $20, before he personally sat them down and explained how that was illegal, and if they were already going to pay for child labor, they should be paying more than usual, not less). He had implemented some of his special refrigerators in grocery stores (who had tried to pull the same scam). And he had built teleporters for himself (for obvious reasons).

Many of his inventions were the reason he and his father were able to afford living in London. At the rate they were going, they could own the house by 2010, maybe sooner. Ferb was looking forward to it, because he certainly did not get much time to rest now. If he really did keep going at this rate, he was going to be on a first-name basis with the nearby superstore.

His father had told him many times that he did not have to do that, that he could handle supporting them himself, but Ferb _liked_ to build too. He would be more upset than not if he had to stop.

And all of this building meant the advanced math and reading (and learning in general) was necessary to increase his knowledge of how to do well in all of it.

Perry was always dragging home scrap metal and various complex wires for Ferb to use. He had no idea where he got them, or how he managed to get them home without hurting himself, but after the first few times (which made Ferb a little nervous), it became a normal occurrence.

Ferb finished the problems he was doing and set them to the side, then grabbed Perry from his spot next to him and set him on his shoulders before picking up his book.

The platypus was still a baby, so he fit on Ferb's shoulders with ease, and he liked to read over Ferb's shoulder— or at least, Ferb thought that was what he was doing. He seemed like a mindless pet most of the time, but his ability to bring home all of the things he was currently needing without fail was proof enough to Ferb that there was some intelligence tucked in there somewhere.

The two remained in the same position— Ferb reading, Perry on his shoulders— until Lawrence got home with food to make dinner later that evening and the two went into the kitchen to help with that instead.

"How was your afternoon?" Lawrence asked, pulling out some packaged noodles.

"We read some books." Ferb said happily. "Perry read over my shoulder."

"Well that sounds lovely." Lawrence said with a smile.

Ferb was still a little young to really help with the cooking, but he could set the table and carry smaller things over. That was exactly what he did tonight, after giving Perry his food from his food bowl.

After dinner, Ferb and his father took Perry into the living room to watch some television. As Ferb's bedtime approached he gave his father his "homework" form earlier for his father to take back. Someone at the universities was always willing to check his work to see if there was anything him (or Perry) missed. There usually wasn't.

After going upstairs to his room his father red him a bedtime story and then left the room, and Ferb went to sleep pretty quickly, with Perry either in his own bed or alongside Ferb in his, depending on his mood.

This type of night was considered an ordinary one by Ferb Fletcher's standards. It was also a happy night by his standards. But most nights were happy, at least happier than the school day. Then again, as long as he had his father and his platypus, he would be good.

Well, as long as he got to build every now and then too.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: This was really not the way I intended this chapter to go, but the characters decided to disobey me and do something completely different (that sometimes happens in writing). But hey, enjoy, because I kind of like how it turned out better.**

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _June 16, 2013_

 _B.O.W.C.A. Headquarters_

"He's _**what?!"**_

Ferb winced and moved the phone farther away from his ear. "Missing." he confirmed, sharing a look with Isabella. He could tell from her face she did not like lying, even partially.

"Did he run off? Where the hell did he go?!" Candace snapped.

"We're not sure…" Ferb moved his gaze back to Isabella, biting his lip. "We just found out."

"Let me talk to Isabella."

 _Told you_ , Ferb mouthed to Isabella. He handed her the cellphone and saw Isabella psyche herself up.

"Hey Candace." she said quietly.

There commenced on the other side of the line more yelling. Isabella flinched and moved the phone away.

"No, we haven't told your mom yet."

A couple more seconds of yelling.

"We didn't want to freak her out."

That was the same reason the two of them had decided not to tell Candace. They had decided it would be best to leave out the part about Phineas being kidnapped by a supervillain organization. Or at least, they had decided it would be best to not mention it to his overprotective sister.

Isabella answered a couple more questions, before saying that they would keep her updated, and then hung up the phone, looking like about the guiltiest person on the face of the planet.

"You okay?" Ferb asked her.

"That felt awful." Isabella replied.

"If you want, you can tell her the truth." Ferb said, although he honestly felt it would mostly make things worse.

"No, I honestly think that would make things worse." Isabella said.

Huh.

"I still hate lying to her though." Isabella said. "I'm not sure you can really understand why. It's just… she's _Candace._ She's always been there. And…"

"It's hard to lie to the people you love." Ferb said, glancing over at Perry who was standing next to him.

"Right." Isabella said, rubbing the back of her arm.

The two were silent for a minute until a new voice came. "So I just go through here?"

"For the last time, _yes."_ came the irritated voice of a guard.

The doors swung open to reveal a man with a triangular face and a pointed nose, a weak forehead and a strong chin, and grey hair. To be honest, if Ferb didn't know the man was dead, he might have said this person was Phineas' father.

"Perry the Platypus!" said the man. "Hey, long time no see!"

Ferb glanced over to see Perry smiling in the sarcastic, amused way that old friends do.

"You two know each other?" Ferb asked. "I thought you were some pharmacist Perry called from America?"

"I'm an Evil Scientist, thank you. Yeah, there was an incident a few years ago with another dimension. I… will admit it _might_ have been _partially_ my fault. But either way it was kinda an 'all-hands-on-deck' situation."

"But… you work _here."_ Ferb said to Perry in confusion.

Perry shrugged.

"So." the pharmacist said. "My name's Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, apparently I'm needed for… something?"

"Yeah." Isabella said, and briefly re-explained their situation to Heinz Doofenshmirtz. "So… do you understand F.R.I.E.N.D.S. at all?"

"Oh, yeah. Honestly, I've never really liked them or B.O.W.C.A. Britain's a little more— ruthless than America. Like, kidnapping? No evil scientist in America stoops to that level. Or at least, no one in L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. would."

"L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.? F.R.I.E.N.D.S.?" Isabella asked. "What's with the deceptively happy names?"

"Who would expect an organization called 'L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.' is doing something evil?"

Ferb and Isabella exchanged a look. "He's got a point." Ferb admitted.

"But yeah, point is, I know how F.R.I.E.N.D.S. works. That's probably why Commander Carl called me over here. Their base actually isn't too far from here, which I'm sure would cause the B.O.W.C.A. to move if they knew. I met up with them for an exchange program a couple years ago… and like I said, never really liked them. So who are we rescuing?"

"My boyfriend." Isabella said.

Doofenshmirtz's eyebrows shot up at the blunt remark. But before Ferb could begin to explain the weapons they had stole— borrowed, Perry called it— or even roll his eyes, another person came through the door. One Ferb was not glad to see.

"Ferb?" Lawrence asked in disbelief. "What exactly is going on? Why won't anyone let me get to the house?"

Ferb chuckled nervously. "Hey, dad. So, about the house…"

Lawrence raised his eyebrows.

"They're going to take care of everything. At least, they said they would…" Perry said, glancing down at Perry.

Perry nodded.

"Yeah. They will. But the house kind of… blew up."

Lawrence was quiet for a couple seconds, but then he sighed. "Alright."

Ferb recoiled. "' _Alright?'_ That's all you've got to say?"

"Well I have spent the last 16 years raising _you_ , and when Phineas came over here and we discovered what he does, I sort of figured it was only a matter of time before some kind of damage happened to something. If someone else is going to cover all the expenses, what do I have to complain about?"

"Wow. You are taking this… _so_ much better than I did." Ferb admitted.

"For the record, it wasn't even really Ferb or Phineas' fault." Isabella pointed out. "I don't think they can be blamed for this one."

"Well, then who was it?" Lawrence asked.

As Isabella began to explain the situation for the third time, Perry tapped Ferb on the shoulder.

Ferb turned and looked at him, and Perry moved his eyes towards the weapons placed at the back of the room.

Ferb bit his lip and nodded. They moved to the back and grabbed the weapons Ferb had picked out. A teleporter (for obvious reasons), a grappling hook (just in case), a stun ray (yes, like from the movies), a lock picking set (also for obvious reasons) and sandpaper (well, you never know).

Ferb passed the teleporter into Isabella's hands as they passed, as she was still taking the scenic route of explaining.

Doofenshmirtz seemed to pick up on what was going on and quietly moved to follow them out the door, which Lawrence noticed them do.

"And where are you going exactly?" he asked, turning around.

Ferb bit his lip. "Sorry." he said. Perry slammed the door and locked it. Isabella appeared outside a second later, and before Lawrence on the other side of the door could even process what was going on, Isabella used the teleporter again and zapped them all away.


	24. Chapter 24

April 2013

Danville, U.S.A.

"England?!" Isabella burst out as Phineas, her, and both of their mothers left the high school. "Three months in England on a trip filled up with everyone we can't stand?!"

"We don't have to go." Phineas pointed out.

"I didn't say that. I mean, it is a 'once in a lifetime opportunity' and blah blah blah… but it's not like it's all expenses paid! We're going to have to do fundraisers with all of them too!"

"Again. We don't have to go."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm totally going. I'm just saying it sounds awful."

"But you… that makes no sense!"

"You make no sense."

"I mean, that's true sometimes, but also not the point." Phineas turned to face Isabella as they approached the car in the parking lot. "If you really think the build-up for it is going to make you miserable, why would we do it?"

Isabella sighed. "Because it's England, Phineas. That's where Sherlock Holmes is. That's where Big Ben is. It sounds amazing just to be able to go and tour the city."

"So you want to go to see the city." Phineas said. He paused for a second. "Okay, I'll admit that's a genuine reason. But."

"But?"

"Money?"

"Yeah, those fundraisers are gonna suck."

They both laughed.

Linda and Vivian both pulled out Isabella's mom's car as Phineas opened the side door in his own mother's car for Isabella to climb in. The two of them had a date.

"Try not to kill us." Isabella said as Phineas climbed in the other door.

"What?"

"You drive like… well, there is not a word to describe how badly you drive." Isabella said, crossing her arms.

Phineas grinned maliciously. "Wait 'till I get my hands on a car in England. They drive on the other side of the road."

"AHHH, NO! The world will not survive!"

Phineas cackled and purposely pulled out a little too quickly. Isabella screamed and grabbed onto the built-in hanger above the door. "I swear I will take an exploding invention over this!"

"Well, I'm sure that can be arranged." Phineas said, giving her another devil smile.

"Focus on the road, idiot!"

Phineas did not stop grinning until they got to their destination, which was the ice rink nearby.

Phineas, as a general rule, did not do dinner dates. He despised dinner dates and everything about them. They were, in his mind, the date 'default,' and anyone who knew him even a little knew he didn't like being unoriginal. The ice rink, as a matter of fact, was a tamer date choice for him. Normally they would be going to farmers markets or zip lining or cave exploring. Isabella said that she could always "count on our dates to get the blood pumping." Phineas would often ask her what she wanted to do, or if he was being too much of an adrenaline seeker, but when she was honest, she adored his ideas to death and loved the (relatively safe) adventure they brought.

The problem this time was that she was terrible at ice skating.

Phineas was skating laps around her with teasing laughter as she hugged the wall with shaking legs. Eventually he took pity on her and slowed down to help her skate a little better. They joined a couples skate where Isabella hung onto Phineas for dear life, and many breaks were taken.

By the end of the night they were laughing and exhausted.

Phineas texted his mother to tell her they were on their way back, and drove just as poorly back to the house.

It was only after Isabella climbed out in front of her house and Phineas pulled the car into his own driveway that he considered what the idea of going to England would really mean.

Isabella was right— touring the city sounded amazing. He would love to poke around inside Big Ben and see how the giant gears worked. He'd looked at clocks before, but nothing on that level. And he supposed there was bound to be at least one superstore in London, so there would be no problem getting parts if he wanted to build anything.

What made him nervous was the idea of a tour guide. He would actually be living with another person for three months. He had never met them, he had no idea what they would be like, or if they would get along…

He would probably end up going because Isabella wanted to go so badly, but he wasn't quite sure he would have any fun.

He supposed he would find out later.


	25. Chapter 25

_Phineas Flynn_

 _Date Unknown_

 _Location Unknown_

Phineas refused to turn into a whimpering mess.

After the crying fit before, he took a good couple hours, collected himself, and promptly sat up and faced the wall, a position from which he had not moved for… he wasn't sure how long.

Buford had not spoken since their argument before, which honestly surprised him. He had expected that at some point he would come up with a "genius comeback" that would change the whole of the argument, but he never did.

The whole rant Phineas had spat out had surprised even himself, because he'd never thought about the rollercoaster in such a way before. He'd been told parts of that argument by other people (Candace and Isabella came to mind), but he'd never really believed such things for himself. At least, he hadn't thought he had.

But as he'd basically vented to Buford, a lot of things had come out of his mouth that he surprisingly _did_ believe, just that he'd never allowed himself to think before. That Buford and Django had been the ones that had reacted badly. That Buford had held onto this thing for _far_ too long. That something else would have gone wrong eventually, and it was not about the rollercoaster in particular.

Candace had told him once that she thought Django had held him to a ridiculous standard. That he should have expected that at some point something would go wrong.

Phineas, with nothing better to do than to listen to his grumbling stomach (he had not eaten in who knows how long), began to let his mind wander back to the months after the court case.

For the first ten days or so, he had stayed hauled up in his room, only coming out to use the bathroom or take the food his mother or sister (he had never learned which it was) would leave outside his door. The person who had gotten him to come out of his room had been Candace. She had certainly not been gentle, but then, the two of them had been gentle for ten days, and it was not working.

" _Phineas!" Candace demanded, pounding on the door. "Open up!"_

 _Phineas didn't move from his bed._

" _Phineas, I have the skeleton key!"_

 _The one that opened most doors in the house. Phineas knew she would get that door open. His sister was not the kind to give up at even such a task as opening a door. However, he still refused to get up and unlock the door himself._

 _So Candace did in fact use the skeleton key. Phineas was still under the covers fortress with a pillow over his head when Candace sat down next to him._

" _Phineas Flynn, I have had just about enough of this."_

 _Phineas mumbled something incoherent._

" _Come on, you need to get up."_

" _Go away."_

" _What is bothering you so much?"_

 _Phineas poked his head out at that. He stared at her in amazement. "Seriously?" he croaked._

"Other _than the rollercoaster genius, because that's not it. Is it the fact that we won?"_

 _Winning the court case. Yeah. That had not felt great. It wasn't like he couldn't still help with Django's hospital bill or otherwise, he even would have, but Django's father was refusing any contact whatsoever._

" _Maybe a little." Phineas mumbled._

" _Phineas, I'm going to be blunt with you for a second."_

 _Phineas glanced over._

" _It makes perfect sense for you to be a little— a_ lot _upset. But, Phineas…" Candace looked like she was trying to phrase her words carefully. "Can you promise me this isn't going to change you?"_

"… _Huh?"_

" _Can you promise me you're still gonna be my little brother? Can you promise me I'm still gonna walk into the backyard to find impossible-yet-somehow-there things? Can you promise me you're still gonna walk over to Isabella's with a skip in your step that's annoying to see but also really adorable? Can you promise me you're still going to be the incredibly irritable but also really sweet brother you've always been? Can you promise me this isn't going to_ change _you?"_

 _Phineas wiped at his eyes which had teared up. "I… I don't know, Candace." he said finally. "I don't think I want it to. At least, not a lot."_

" _For the record, no one your age should have to go through something like this." Candace said. "I mean, no one should, but kids especially." She paused. "That probably didn't help much. Sorry, I'm really not used to having to comfort people, especially not_ you _. I mean, there was that time at the courthouse, but that was more an idiot who was bothering you. That kind of stuff is easier to talk about."_

" _You should work on that." Phineas mumbled in a tone that made sure Candace knew he was joking._

" _Yeah? You can help me." Candace said, pulling Phineas to her side. "I'll help you too. I won't even try to bust you anymore."_

" _You won't try to what?"_

 _Candace gave him a baffled look. "I've been trying to get you in trouble with mom? Since you were like, 5 years old."_

" _Wait, you have?"_

" _You know what, never mind. Point is, not doing it anymore. Right now I am going to drag you out to eat some food at the table in the kitchen and get some Vitamin D. You are becoming a vampire."_

" _I wanna stay here."_

" _And I want a million bucks, kiddo. Come on." Candace, without waiting for another response, grabbed Phineas by his legs and threw him over her shoulder. Phineas cried out in shock as Candace carried him out of the bedroom. "And then you're taking a shower. You stink."_

Phineas smiled to himself thinking back on the memories.

Candace had held true to her promise, no more busting. She became basically a different person overnight. Phineas talked all the time about how amazing and supportive Isabella was, and he would never downgrade that, but to be honest, Candace had been a godsend.

Words could not describe how amazing his sister had been. She was gentle and caring when she needed to be, and blunt and firm when she needed to be, and despite her admittance that she wasn't very good at it, she seemed to pick up on what was needed when remarkably quickly.

It was no question the reason he had not given up on inventing after the rollercoaster. Candace never forced him to build anything, but she sure as hell wouldn't let him stop for good. And that was another thing Phineas would never stop being grateful for.

He might get on her tail all the time for being massively overprotective, and they both might annoy each other to death sometimes, but he couldn't have asked for a better sister. (And to be honest, he understood why she was overprotective. When he thought about it, he probably would be too.)

Both of his legs had fallen asleep while he'd been reminiscing, and Phineas paused to stretch them out in front of him and leave them there until the blood started flowing again.

They had probably realized he was missing somehow at this point. They had also probably told Candace such, and she was probably freaking out. He wondered if they'd told his mom.

The next second Buford started to snore, and Phineas looked up at the ceiling in exasperation.

In the time that he'd been here— wherever here was— he had managed to accomplish exactly one thing, and that was to not go crazy from Buford's inane mumblings under his breath. He wasn't sure what the kid's deal was, but he strongly suspected he was only doing that to fill the silence.

But Phineas, who needed quiet to be able to sleep, had gotten very little, and was starting to feel that at this point.

When Buford started snoring this time, Phineas groaned through his teeth and shoved his head in between his hands.

Then he spread his legs out further and began to crawl around inside the cell they were in— it was just short of standing up height. Over on the other side was a couple of loose nails that he could fidget with, which Buford had labeled off limits by growling every time Phineas had started to crawl over to them.

Well… okay, that was exaggerating a bit. In reality, he had grumbled disapprovingly beneath his voice when Phineas started to move towards Buford's "side," which had been established without words.

Now, however, Buford was asleep…

It was hard to see much of anything in the cell, as there were no windows and it was entirely made of cold cement— the kind you think of when you picture a dark cell. Wasn't the cleanest either.

But the nails had stood out to Phineas when he'd noticed them. Mostly because when he'd noticed them he had been bored out of his mind and they had looked slightly different from the cell wall around it.

When he arrived at them he realized they were attached to what looked like a basic AC/heater vent. Which meant that this room had at some point been built to provide some kind of _comfort._

When Phineas barely touched the grate it groaned under it's fingers, meaning the whole thing was remarkably old.

Phineas looked behind him (mostly making sure Buford was still asleep), and then yanked the grate off.

Inside resides a couple pieces of wire, a _ton_ of dust, and something Phineas could not identify, which was more than a little concerning. After staring at it for a while, he immediately turned away. He couldn't be quite sure, but it looked like a mouse corpse.

But now he had a rusty grate, some wire, and some rusty screws, which was an improvement over ten minutes ago. He briefly considered trying to cut his hand open and give himself tetanus, but he wasn't sure if anyone outside would be bothered to call a doctor. They probably would, considering he was bait and would only be useful alive, but it was not a guarantee and tetanus was certainly not pleasant, so that was out— or at least a last case scenario.

Obviously there wasn't much he could do with wire or rusty metal, especially considering there were no signs of a door.

Phineas scanned the ceiling, and found what he had been almost positive was there— a security camera with a little red light. He grinned, crawled over, climbed up to his knees and promptly slammed the metal grate into the lens.

"WAHHH!" Buford screamed, jumping upright and slamming his head into the ceiling. " _WHAT THE FUCK?!"_ He noticed Phineas. " _WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"_

"Shut up, would you?" Phineas hissed. "I'm getting us out of here."

"That camera's only the lens, genius! I noticed it earlier! They obviously know what you can do, they wouldn't leave you any useful parts!"

"They left me some rusty metal and some wires," Phineas said, sitting back against the wall.

"Can you _do_ anything with that stuff?"

"No," Phineas said, grinning slightly maliciously. "But they don't know that."


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N: This will be the last chapter in the past, as after this we are caught up to the beginning of the story.**

 _April 2013_

 _London, England_

Over the years Ferb had pretty much been forced to talk more by various teachers, which was the main reason he couldn't stand Mr. Taylor. The man would purposely call him out for every single slightly harder question in the book (which Ferb always knew the answers to, but it was still annoying).

Ferb wasn't sure where the intense hatred Mr. Taylor had developed for him had come from, but it did not seem to be letting up and even the other students (ones that hated Ferb the rest of the time) would approach him and say they were sorry he was treated that way and they weren't sure why he was.

Today, after Mr. Taylor finished his assault of questions, and other students were done rolling their eyes or silently groaning, he told Ferb to stay after class and moved on to give out the homework.

As the bell rung, Ferb's table partner, whose name was Thomas, turned to him. "Good luck." he said, rising from his seat with a glance at Mr. Taylor. "I don't know why they haven't fired that guy yet."

Ferb gave a brief chuckle and rose to talk to Mr. Taylor.

But instead of an insult, he was given a piece of paper that simply said something about a meeting that Wednesday.

"What's this?" Ferb asked.

"Apparently _somebody_ thinks you're tour guide material and recommended you for this thing." Mr. Taylor said. "As to why they haven't come to their senses yet, I have no idea. The meeting is on Wednesday, you'll find everything out then.

"Everything out about what?"

But Mr. Taylor had stopped paying attention and was moving on to the papers the last class must have turned in. Ferb turned and walked out, carrying the paper.

Well, that had been as informative as a brick.

Later that night Ferb mentioned the meeting to his father, and they figured they should probably go at least to figure out what it was about.

So they marked it on the calendar and went back to what they'd planned for that evening (which was nothing), and that was that.

…

The meeting was in the school library, and not many people were there. Ferb glanced at the clock, but it was about the time it was supposed to start. Maybe there just weren't a lot of people needed.

They both picked a table and sat down off to the left.

Just as they were doing so, their librarian, Ms. Mirta, walked to the front of the room and started talking.

"Thank you all for deciding to be a tour guide and coming to get the information." she said.

"Wait, pardon?" Lawrence called.

She turned to him. "If you're here it means you've already decided you wish to be a tour guide." she said. Then she went back to discussing what was going on.

Lawrence turned to Ferb. _Mr. Taylor?_ he mouthed.

Ferb nodded.

Lawrence sighed.

Well. Apparently he was a tour guide now. He listened as Ms. Mirta went on to talk about the details of what this would mean, assuring them they would not have to accomodate more than two people, warning that at least one of them wouldn't be a tour guide (there were slight murmurs of disappointment at this), and telling them when or where they needed to meet.

At the end of the night, Ferb knew what he should have known several days ago, and apparently he was a tour guide now.

"Well." his father said as they walked into the house. "We should probably set up some guest rooms."

"We only have the one." Ferb pointed out.

"So I can move my things from the office to the basement for the summer and we can buy another bed. It'll work out." Lawrence said with a shrug.

Ferb sighed. "Sorry I didn't know this stuff before."

"Well, we all hate Mr. Taylor, don't we?"

Ferb chuckled.

So apparently he was stuck with this now. Hopefully the people he may or may not tour were not total monsters.


	27. Chapter 27

_Ferb Fletcher_

 _June 16, 2013_

 _F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Headquarters_

"This," Ferb said, looking around at their barren surroundings. "Is not even the inside of the building."

"Oh, yeah." Doofenshmirtz said. "They uh— they might have installed some defences against teleporters after the exchange program a couple years ago."

Everyone turned to Doofenshmirtz in disbelief.

"May or may not be my fault."

Perry smacked his forehead.

Ferb sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Okay, we're going to have to do this the long way."

"The dangerous way." Doofenshmirtz corrected.

Ferb blew a breath of air through his teeth. He took out his stun ray and tucked the teleporter into his bag. Isabella had the grappling hook, Perry had the lock-picking set, and Doofenshmirtz, for reasons unknown, had insisted on taking the sandpaper.

Isabella, without asking permission, fired her grappling hook towards the roof. She flew up after it and landed with a painful-sounding thump. But rather than her being hurt, her head popped out a moment later. She tossed the grappling hook back down to Ferb.

Ferb grabbed Perry's arm as he fired it, and the two of them flew through the air together, Perry landing nimbly on his feet and Ferb stumbling for a minute before regaining his own.

Ferb threw the grappling hook back down one more time and Doofenshmirtz landed flat on his face on the rooftop.

"Shh!" Isabella hissed.

"Gee, sorry my pain is too loud for you." Doofenshmirtz muttered pushing himself up.

There was a vent on the other side of the roof that everyone moved towards.

"Alright, where should this put us?" Ferb asked, turning back to Doofenshmirtz.

"Uh… storage."

"Perfect."

Ferb pulled out his screwdriver and loosen all the nails, then quietly pulled the metal vent off. He poked his head into the room and saw a crate near the top he could balance on so he wouldn't have to fall the twenty feet to the floor. He sat back on his heels. "Okay, there's a crate to aim for."

"Oh, great. That makes me feel very safe." Doofenshmirtz said. "Do you know how old I am?"

"We're breaking into a supervillian organization. You're not going to be safe anyway!" Isabella said with a roll of her eyes.

Ferb slid carefully through the vent and held onto the edge. Then he stretched his legs until the top of his toes touched the crate. Ferb let go and immediately flailed his arms trying to regain his balance. It took a couple seconds, but he did not fall. From the crate he was able to lower himself to the ground.

When he looked back up Isabella was already lowering herself onto the crate after him. She made it with ease and hopped down onto the ground.

"Well, you are… admittedly better at that than me." Ferb said sheepishly.

Isabella beamed.

Perry jumped straight from the vent to the floor, dragging Doofenshmirtz behind him, who once again landed on his face.

"My nose is going to be very bruised by the end of today." he muttered as he sat up.

"Okay, this is your departement now." Isabella said to Doofenshmirtz. "Where should we go?"

Doofenshmirtz poked his head out of the door. "Okay, unless this has changed in the past six years, which is likely—"

"Great." Ferb said.

"—We should wait 37 seconds and then go out to the right."

"What?" Isabella asked. Both she and Ferb glanced down at Perry, who nodded as if to say they could trust him on this.

"Okay." Ferb muttered. "Let's just hope nothing gets us killed."

 _Phineas Flynn_

 _June 16, 2013_

 _Location Unknown_

Just as Phineas had expected, it had taken less than two minutes for someone to show up.

Half a minute in he realized he had no idea _where_ the door would show up, so he and Buford stood back to back in the center of the cell. Buford was holding the rusty grate from the broken camera and the wires, and Phineas grabbed the screws and the only other thing in the room that could possibly be considered a weapon.

When a section of the wall slid open directly across from Phineas, he threw a mouse corpse at the first guard he saw.

The person ducked and it hit the other guard square in the face. The other guard cried out in disgust and tried to swipe it off, and ended up hitting the first guard in the back of the head, and tripping in his attempt to not do that. The result was both guards collapsed on top of each other unconscious.

"That." Buford said. "Was the saddest thing I have ever seen."

"Let's go!" Phineas yelled, running out of the cell with Buford close on his heels.

" _Attention."_ came a voice over the loudspeaker, and both Buford and Phineas sped up faster. " _Note two prisoners are escaping from this location."_

"Why would they say 'from this location?'" Phineas asked in confusion.

"It's England! Why do they do anything?" Buford snapped. "Just get us out of here!"

"I don't think that'll be too hard." Phineas said, skidding to a stop in front of a sign that had a large arrow saying 'Exit.'

The sign pointed towards a door a couple feet down the hallway to their right.

Both ran out the door— and skidded to a stop one more time. Surrounding them on all sides was water.

They were on a cliff the middle of an ocean.

"Do you get it now?"

Both Phineas and Buford whirled around to see a guard standing not even three feet away with a gun.

"You're not getting out of here!"

"Buford," Phineas said through the side of his teeth. "Can you kinda trust me blindly for a minute?"

"What?" Buford asked.

"Can you trust me for a minute?"

"Wha—" he stopped, then sighed. "Sure, Dinner Bell."

Somewhere in his head it registered that Buford had called him Dinner Bell and not Screwball.

"Tackle him." Phineas said.

And Buford, true to his word, ran straight at the guard and dragged him to the ground.

Phineas ran over and grabbed the guards gun, then broke it in half by slamming it hard on the ground.

Inside was exactly what he expected. Phineas grabbed part after part as Buford stood looking back at the building. "Can you hurry it along any?" he asked anxiously.

"Not with my track record." Phineas muttered. He grabbed the last piece and attached it to the handmade propeller fan, then flipped the (also handmade) switch.

"Grab on!" he yelled as the doors slammed open and guards poured out.

Buford grabbed Phineas' wrist as their escape route shot up into the air at half the speed of a race car.

Bullets whizzed through the air after them, and Phineas hit another button, forming a forcefield around the two of them.

Buford cackled. "Man, did they _underestimate_ you!"

"Yeah, well, we're not out of the woods yet." Phineas admitted. "This thing will not last forever, and I have no idea where we are."

"So…"

"Pick a direction and hope we get lucky."

"Ah, shit. Okay… go towards the sun. It's rising over there and England's to the east, right?"

"Uh— yeah. Wow, that's pretty smart, Buford."

"Whatever."

Phineas angled the makeshift invention in the right direction, and soon they were zipping along through the air, gaining daylight. Phineas arm was beginning to hurt from Buford holding onto it so hard, but it wasn't like he could let go.

"Great, now I'm gonna get jet lag." Buford muttered.

Phineas choked on a laugh. "Yeah, because that is obviously the most important thing right now."

"I'm filthy and hungry and being chased by kidnappers, Dinner Bell. Just trying to focus on the least bothersome issue."

Phineas laughed again. "Optimism is not a quality I would pin to you."

"Yeah, kind of like you making a working invention."

He laughed one more time. "Yeah, me neither."

He'd had a couple months of practice with a competent partner.

Phineas sighed. He really didn't want to think about the situation with Ferb right now. He doubted Ferb hated him. Those had most likely been frantic thoughts from moments when he was panicking. But he wouldn't have been surprised if Ferb was still mad, either.

It a couple of hours before the invention started to sputter. Phineas immediately started to bring them lower towards the ocean, and the invention gave out a couple feet above. The resounding splash was not very big.

"Well, at least we're sort of clean now." Phineas pointed out.

"Yeah, but we're still in the middle of the ocean who knows how far from the shore, with a now useless invention!"

"Was trying to focus on the least bothersome issue, Buford." Phineas said nervously. He began to look around. "Uh… there. Island."

There was an island what looked about a mile of water off to the left.

"Dude, I cannot swim that far in this state. I am so hungry I could eat my vegetables." Buford said, crossing his arms.

"Wow, that's really not healthy. Okay, hang on."

Buford grabbed Phineas' free arm again as Phineas held up the makeshift invention and smacked it a couple times, until there was a weak sputter. Fortunately, because of the way the thing was built, that sputter got the two of them almost all the way there.

They swam the remaining distance, and then Phineas managed to get his feet under him as the adrenaline from their escape finally started to wear off. The whole island was small enough that it certainly would not be on any map, but luckily for the two of them, it had one benefit: coconuts.

About six coconuts later (individually), both he and Buford had had their fill.

"Okay." Phineas said, pulling another coconut off a tree. "I think I can use this to make that invention water powered."

" _What?!_ Okay, I call bullshit."

"What do you mean?"

"Dinner Bell, it's a _coconut._ You cannot break the laws of physics."

"Actually, this one time—"

"Ah ah ah, I don't want to hear it."

"Alright, fine. But I'm not breaking the laws of physics. Coconuts have loads of chemicals I can use. Hydrogen and oxygen being two of them. Carbon and sulfur being others. It's all in the amino acids."

" _Stop it!_ I am _failing_ chemistry."

Phineas sighed. "I can use the coconut to get us back to England."

There was still a couple seconds of silence.

"I am writing that sentence down."

Phineas chuckled and cracked the coconut open. Then, several coconuts and handfuls of sea water later the invention was water powered and Buford was holding six more coconuts for the trip.

"No way. You are not holding my arm the whole time again."

" _Fine."_

This time Phineas grabbed onto Buford's ankle and they flew off— albeit this time closer to the water because some people from back at wherever they had been would probably be _actually_ after them at this point.

Phineas held the coconuts.

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _June 16, 2013_

 _F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Headquarters_

 _London, England_

"He's… he's not here." Doofenshmirtz said.

"What do you _mean_ he's not here?!" Isabella snapped.

" _This_ is where they keep prisoners." Doofenshmirtz said, gesturing around them.

"Could he be somewhere else for some reason?" Ferb asked.

"I… I don't think so."

"But you don't know."

"I— no. He couldn't be anywhere else. He's not here."

"But what do we do now?" Isabella asked. "How long do we have before we're caught?"

They had evaded the cameras so far given Doofenshmirtz's familiarity with the building and a _very_ weird path they had all agreed never to speak of again, but after a too-long search for Phineas, they were running out of time before guards and cameras showed up.

"Probably about 30 seconds."

"Where can we go?!" Isabella asked desperately. This was the only hallway for forever.

Ferb turned to Doofenshmirtz. "What are your terms with them?"

"They would shoot me on sight."

"Wow. Okay. Um, is there a bathroom or something?"

Perry tugged on Ferb's pants and pointed to the end of the hall, where there was in fact a bathroom, probably for the guards.

Everyone ran down towards it and inside.

"Okay. Now what?" Isabella asked.

"We could always get in a stall and stand on the—"

" _NO!"_ Ferb and Isabella snapped simultaneously.

"We are _not_ doing that again." Ferb said.

"Well then what would you suggest?" Doofenshmirtz asked. "How in the world did I get myself into this mess? The other dimension was less stressful, and I almost got eaten by a—"

He was interrupted by the very loud roar of an animal coming from directly outside the bathroom.

"…Goozim?" he finished with a squeak.

A giant monster that was shaped like a square crashed it's entire head through the wall.

"Why would a supervillain organization even _have_ one of those?!" Isabella screamed.

The monster roared again.

"Well." Doofenshmirtz said. "We're screwed."

"Not yet." Ferb said, taking the stun ray and firing it at the Goozim, which started to shake like it was being tasered, then promptly fell over, revealing at least two dozen shocked guards.

Ferb fired the stun ray again, and again, and again, while Isabella used her grappling hook to whack them in the face. Perry took out about six guards with each blow.

By the time the guards had recovered from their giant monster being taken down and were starting to fire back, there were three of them left.

Ferb took out one with the stun ray and Isabella with the grappling hook.

Then, when Perry grabbed the last one's weapon, Doofenshmirtz walked over the cowering guard and shoved the sandpaper in his face.

"Yes!" he yelled. "I helped!"

"Ow." said the guard.

Perry gave a hard blow to the back of the head and the guard collapsed on top of another one.

"We should probably get out of here." Isabella said.

Doofenshmirtz found them the quickest exit and as they were exiting alarms started to blare.

"What about Phineas?!" Isabella yelled.

"He's not there!" Ferb replied, snatching Perry off the ground as he could not quite run as fast as everyone else. "And _we're_ kind of their main targets right now! We need a place to lie low!"

Isabella grabbed the teleporter from Ferb's backpack with a grin. "I know the perfect place." she said, and the world around them vanished as she turned it on.


	28. Chapter 28

_Phineas Flynn_

 _June 17, 2013_

 _London, England_

Well.

Baljeet and Gretchen were really pissed.

When he and Buford got back to England the first place Phineas went was the house that was now a pile of rubble, and standing outside were Baljeet and Gretchen, who were very angry at having been left out of everything and not knowing where the heck they'd all been the past couple days.

Phineas ended up interrupting them because what did they mean they didn't know where Ferb and Isabella were?

They said no one had seen him since almost four days ago, and that was when Phineas started to worry, because where were they then?

Buford who hadn't wanted to go home in fear of them finding him (and it was a valid fear), accompanied the other three of them to the B.O.W.C.A. Headquarters (along with plenty of sarcasm), which Phineas had learned the location of not long after he had learned Perry was an agent.

Inspector Initials didn't even look surprised when the four of them showed up, she just looked annoyed.

After a quick explanation of what had happened and that no, she had no idea where Ferb or Isabella or Perry were, she gave Phineas one more valuable piece of information.

"We are making sure that Ferb and Lawrence Fletcher's house is bug-proof this time—"

"Wait, what?" Phineas asked.

"The reason Perry's identity was uncovered. Someone found a way to smuggle a bug into his lair, and that is how they learned of who he was. They heard me say Ferb and Lawrence's names a couple hours before you learned of his identity."

Something tight in Phineas' chest loosened that he hadn't even known was there. It _wasn't_ his fault.

They had also been taken to another room where Lawrence was waiting. He was happy to see them, but he was definitely _not_ happy about Ferb and Isabella running off with Perry and some old guy from America to search for Phineas. Apparently someone had found Ferb's tool box among the wreckage, which made Phineas light up with an idea.

"Does anyone know where they keep the gadgets in this place?" he asked.

Buford, Baljeet, and Gretchen all gave him blank looks.

"Yes." Lawrence said. "Why?"

Phineas grinned.

"Woah… I'm in heaven." Phineas said, staring at all of the weapons and gadgets in front of him.

Buford snorted. "Try not to wet yourself."

Phineas smacked Buford upside the head without moving his gaze, and Buford laughed.

Baljeet and Gretchen exchanged a surprised glance.

Phineas shook himself. "Okay. Set the toolbox over there."

Lawrence set it on the table and Phineas turned to everyone else.

"Baljeet, I need Pizzazium Infinionite and Carbon Nitrate. Gretchen, do you know what the elements look like?"

"Of course I do." Gretchen said.

"Great. I need magnetized iron ore, like for a compass. Buford, I need scrap metal. Lots and lots of scrap metal."

"I'm on it."

"Uh, Mr. Fletcher—" Phineas tapped his chin.

"I raised an inventor, Phineas. What else do you need?"

"Uh— right. Stuff for a DNA scanner, thanks." Phineas said.

Lawrence walked off, and Phineas went down another isle picking up important things as he went.

About half an hour later everyone gathered back at the front of the room with their various items, and Phineas, who had been drawing a blueprint in his head for the past half hour immediately grabbed some handfuls of scrap metal.

"How can we help, Dinner Bell?"

"Huh?" Phineas asked in surprise.

"Well, I'm basically stuck with you till the end of this thing now, and of helping you with this— _thing_ gets us out of this mess faster, I'll help. What do I have to do?"

Phineas glanced at Baljeet, Gretchen, and Lawrence, all of who looked willing to help.

Phineas started to grin. "Well okay then. Baljeet, if you and Gretchen could mix the chemicals together, and Mr. Fletcher, if you wouldn't mind connecting the DNA scanner with these wires, then Buford and I can work on the frame."

"Oh, no fair! You just took the easiest job!" Baljeet protested.

"You love chemistry!" Gretchen said, crossing her arms.

"I— yes, that is true." Baljeet admitted, and the two took the chemicals to a different table.

Lawrence started on the DNA scanner and the wires, and Phineas started to instruct Buford on what to do as the two put the frame together. After a while they actually got in a pretty good rhythm, and by the time they finished, Gretchen and Baljeet were carrying the chemicals back over and Lawrence was long done with his task.

Phineas took each of the three things and set them together on the table, connecting first the DNA scanner to the chemical locator and then putting them all inside the frame and connecting them with a couple more wires.

And after double checking everything a couple times, he stepped back. "Okay." Phineas said. "Scanning the toolbox."

"Um, how many people have touched that in the past couple days?" Baljeet asked. "And didn't it sit in rubble for a while?"

Lawrence chuckled. "I took that into account."

Phineas pulled up a holographic screen with a list of names on it, and began crossing out names. His own, Lawrence, a dozen names that were probably guards who'd taken it from the rubble, until the last name on there was Ferb, and he selected that one.

"Okay. Let's see where they are. Or at least where Ferb is."

An image of a spinning Earth appeared as the machine processed, and eventually it zoomed on Ferb's location.

Phineas' eyes widened. "I don't believe it."

"What?" Buford asked.


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: Okay, here you go swanglade37** **. ;)**

 _Ferb Fletcher_

 _June 19, 2013_

 _Danville, U.S.A._

The doorbell was ringing.

Ferb and Isabella shared a look, unsure of whether or not it was safe to go over there.

"Um—" Isabella started.

"I got it!" Candace called, walking into the room. "Ya bunch of freeloaders. You come into my apartment, eat my food, sleep in my living room, and you can't even open the door."

"We're worried it's someone trying to kill us!" Isabella protested.

"Oh, excuses, excuses." Candace said.

Anyone who knew Candace for longer than a couple hours could tell what a massive mask she was putting on right now. She was incredibly worried, and she had been since Isabella, Ferb and his pet, and an evil scientist had appeared in her living room with the admittance that they'd lied to her and were in the middle of a terrifying situation.

Candace had immediately told her mother, who had also come over there and now Candace's apartment was filled to the brim… mostly because it would be much harder to find a bunch of people who were staying in an apartment building than if they were in a house.

Isabella had been incredibly worried Candace would be mad, but in the end the two of them and Linda had just had a massive worried hugging fest and ice cream eating marathon.

You could definitely tell they'd all known each other for a long time.

Ferb had gone back to his book when Candace screamed. Ferb and Isabella (the only other people in the living room) sat bolt upright as Candace yanked open the door and threw her arms around—

 _Phineas?_

" _PHINEAS!"_ Isabella screamed, who ran over threw her arms around Phineas too.

A couple seconds later Ferb found himself joining the two of them without even remembering walking over there.

"Uh, guys, we should really get inside." Phineas said into Candace's shoulder, where his face was being pressed.

"Ah! Yes, come in, quickly!" Candace said, gesturing for Phineas to come inside.

But Phineas was followed by Baljeet, then Gretchen, then—

"Dad!" Ferb called, realizing in that moment what had happened the last time he'd seen his father. "Um…"

Lawrence raised an eyebrow.

"…I'm grounded, aren't I?"

"Until you die."

Ferb chuckled anxiously and rubbed his neck. But then one more person came into the apartment.

"What. Are. _You_ doing here?" Candace asked in a dangerously low voice as she marched over to Buford and basically made him look small.

"Ahh… Screwball your sister wants to kill me."

"Candace, people are after him too!" Phineas protested. "He's going to have to stay here!"

"First of all, no way. Second of all, I have _no room!"_

"Do you have room for Baljeet and Mr. Fletcher and Gretchen?" Phineas asked, crossed his arms.

"Of course!"

"Then why not Buford?"

"Wha— because—" Candace fell off into a stunned silence. She turned to look at Isabella, who also shrugged in bafflement.

"Uh— okay. Come in, Buford." Candace said, looking like the words burned her mouth on the way out. After Candace shut the door, Ferb noticed her grab him by the collar and hiss "Touch anything and I'll murder you."

Buford stood awkwardly over by the wall and looked around with the same amount of awkwardness.

"Well, okay then." Baljeet said. "Next matter of business. _Tell us_ next time you go take on a supervillian organization!"

"Okay, we get it, we screwed up!" Isabella said.

Phineas smiled and kissed her on the tip of her nose. "It's okay Izzy. I forgive you."

Isabella turned bright red, and Phineas chuckled. "Well it's good to know I can make you as embarrassed as you can make me."

The next second a teal platypus ran into the room and jumped straight into Phineas' arms.

Phineas laughed. "Aw, Perry. Did you miss me?"

"Phineas?" came another familiar voice. Linda Flynn ran into the room and straight for her son.

"Mom!" Phineas called, and the two shared a hug that looked mutually painful.

"Okay, okay, wait." Isabella said after Phineas let go of his mother. "I have so many questions. How did you escape, how did you find us, where were you?"

"How did you get back to England?" Baljeet asked.

"Short story?" Buford said. "Dinner Bell used a coconut."

Phineas glanced back at Buford. "It was a little more complicated than that."

"Well, we," came Doofenshmirtz's voice as the last member of the group finally joined the party, "stood on some—"

"NO!" Ferb and Isabella screamed while Perry hid his face in his paws.

"We are _NOT_ talking about that!" Isabella continued, still screaming.

"Um, talking about what?" Gretchen asked.

"NOTHING!" they both screamed simultaneously.

There was a couple seconds of silence.

"I beat up a guard with sandpaper." Doofenshmirtz said proudly.

Everyone's gazes turned to him.

"Really?" Buford asked.

"No." Ferb said in irritation.

"Okay." Phineas said, turning to Isabella and Candace. "So the B.O.W.C.A. is working to take care of all the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. agents who tried to kill us—"

"Wait, what?" Isabella asked. "They're helping now?"

Phineas paused. "What? Yeah. Why, were they not helping before?"

Isabella shot a questioning glance at Ferb, who shrugged. "Maybe they felt guilty. Maybe their moral compasses are late. At least we're getting some help now."

"Right." Phineas said, and Ferb noticed he avoided his gaze. "Anyway, we're gonna have to lay low here while they're doing that. Is that okay, Candace?"

Candace sighed. "Well, it's gonna be really tight, but you'd have to have a really low opinion of me to think I'd kick you out."

Phineas chuckled.

"Hey." Gretchen said. "I've got my Advanced Sewing patch. Get me some fabric and I think I can make some sleeping bags."

…

Phineas was in the kitchen with a glass of milk when Ferb walked in at around 3 in the morning.

"You… okay?" he asked hesitantly.

"I can't sleep with noise." Phineas said. "And right now there are 7 other people and one platypus in the living room."

"Oh." Ferb said. Things were silent for a minute.

"Um." Ferb started awkwardly. "I'm sorry. That I reacted the way I did, back at Big Ben. I was far too angry than I had any reason to be."

Phineas looked at him curiously for a minute. "Hey Ferb," he said eventually. "Do you know the story of Isabella's first explosion?"

"Um— no." Ferb said, and left it at that, unsure what else to say. He moved over and sat at the seat across from Phineas.

"Well, I don't even remember what the thing was, but Isabella _freaked out._ She got a pretty bad burn on her arm, and she ran back across the street before I could even say anything. Then she avoided me for the next three days. By the time she came back to see me again, I was even more scared than she had originally. She ended up apologizing first, and then I apologized, both of us like six times in total by the way, and after that Isabella was never bothered by an explosion… ever again, really."

"So, you're saying I'm not the only one to react badly?" Ferb asked.

"Well, kinda, but I'm also saying that the stuff you and I do is not always safe. There's gonna be stuff that gets messed up sometimes, and a lot of the times it can be scary. I mean, the _first_ time something I built blew up, I starting crying and ran up to hide in my blanket fortress."

Ferb chuckled.

"I may be ridiculously smart and all, and you might be too, but we still make mistakes a lot of the time. So I guess what I'm really saying is… we're good."

Ferb gave a grateful half-smile. "Thanks. You have no idea how relieved that makes me."

"I have some idea." Phineas said, raising a teasing eyebrow.

"Okay, you know what?"

Both of them whirled around to see Candace standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

"If you two are going to blabber and keep everyone else up—"

"Candace, you're the only other one awake." Phineas pointed out.

"You're keeping everyone else _important_ up. Phineas, you can have my room if it means you'll get some friggin sleep."

"Wow." Ferb remarked. "You two really did not take long to start trying to drive each other crazy again."

"It's what siblings do." Candace said. "You should know."

"What, why? I'm an only child, Candace."

"Really?" Candace raised an eyebrow. "Coulda fooled me. You two act enough like brothers that you're basically family already."

"Already? What do you mean already?" Phineas asked in confusion.

"Don't tell me you two haven't noticed the way our parents look at each other. It's only a matter of time. I'm going to go get my pillow."

Candace walked back to her room as Phineas and Ferb exchanged a surprised glance.


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N: I just realized I've been putting the dates as if it was June. That's supposed to say July, sorry. Well, now it's August, but it was supposed to say July.**

 _Phineas Flynn_

 _August 3, 2013_

 _Danville, U.S.A._

Hiding out was _so boring._ Most of the days had passed with various movies and board games (ha, get it?), and attempts to not drive each other insane.

They had no contact from anyone, and Candace had to take their mother home eventually while everyone else stayed there. Linda Flynn was, however, there at the moment.

"You know, I wonder where Candace keeps her Sherlock Holmes…" Phineas muttered, chin in his hand.

Isabella turned to him, looking horrified.

" _What?!_ I have been in here _way too long!_ I've already taken apart the toaster more times than I can count. I need something else to occupy myself."

"Not _Sherlock Holmes!_ You hate everything to do with that series! You've said a million times that you have 'standards!'"

Phineas shoved his chair back. "Screw my standards. What's the first book called?"

The front door opened and shut again.

"Candace!" Phineas yelled. " _Please_ tell me you brought something for me to do!"

Candace rolled her eyes. "Phineas, it's been, like, 2 weeks."

"And I am dying! I was about to read _Sherlock Holmes!"_

Chuckles resounded throughout the room.

"It could be worse, dude." said Buford, who was hanging upside down off of the couch. "We could still be somewhere in the atlantic."

Buford had a point. At least here they got to shower and eat. Although it honestly felt like there was significantly less space.

"Well, lucky for you, Phineas, I brought something better than scrap metal."

"Mmm… nah, not possible." Phineas said.

And then Inspector Initials walked into the room.

Everyone sat bolt upright and moved towards the front of the room— more or less subconsciously.

The Inspector noticed this and backed up, farther into the hallway. "Yes, yes, hello, don't advance on me like zombies please."

"Lady, it's been _weeks. Tell me_ you did something about those idiots." Buford snapped.

"We have indeed managed to find and apprehend all of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. agents, yes." Inspector Initials said. "Thanks to you four finding the location. That does not speak for the rest of our enemies, but none of them are after any of you. We've double checked. So, we've booked a private jet for however many of you wish to go back to England." She then turned to look down at Perry. "Agent P, obviously we need you to come back with us right now."

Perry gave an angry chatter.

"This is _not_ a debate, agent. We need to work on relocating you with a new family."

"What?" came Ferb. "But—"

"We're sorry, but it is for you and your father's safety."

Perry whirled towards where Phineas was standing by the couch. He grabbed both a sticky note and a pen, and Phineas leaned over to watch what he was writing. When he could make the words out he choked on a laugh.

Perry stomped back over to Inspector Initials and shoved the sticky note onto her forehead.

 _I'm retiring._

"P-pardon?" Inspector Initials asked when she finally managed to pull the note down and read it.

"What did you expect?" Ferb asked, crossing his arms. "You refused to help him or even give him supplies to rescue one of his owners. He had to steal it himself."

"Technically I'm not his owner." Phineas pointed out.

"Well, according to Candace we're practically family already, so that makes him your platypus too."

Perry gave a smile that was somewhat grateful, and mostly triumphant as Inspector Initials continued to gape.

"Alright doofus," Candace said, walking over to Phineas and giving him a hug. "Go get on that plane."

"You think he's going _back?"_ Linda asked in astonishment.

"You think you can stop him?" Candace asked, raising an eyebrow.

Linda sighed, and joined the hug. "If anything happens again Phineas, I swear to God…"

"Nothing's gonna happen mom." Phineas said, giving his mother a hug back.

"If anything, the whole lot of them is grounded for another week." said Lawrence.

Ferb groaned.

"No parental figures are here to stop me." Gretchen pointed out. "And I do _not_ want to miss whatever Phineas and Ferb come up with for a finale."

"I am going if Gretchen is going." Baljeet said with a shrug.

"It's better than stayin' here." Buford grunted.

"And there's Buford, bringing his ever-present cheer to the situation." Phineas said with a smirk.

An hour later many goodbyes between Phineas, his mother, and his sister, everyone was sitting on a private jet.

Phineas was running around writing down schematics and creating a blueprint for how the plane worked. Ferb was alternating between reading a book and looking out the window (something he had not done for a while). Isabella was questioning Gretchen about all the things she had done as leader of the Fireside Girls. Baljeet was sitting next to them questioning the usefulness of some of those patches, while Gretchen was every now and then giving him a 'You think you could do better?' look. Lawrence was sitting in the cockpit to get some peace and quiet. And Buford had somehow managed to convince someone to give him alcohol.

After Phineas finished writing down everything he wanted to, he went over and slid into the seat next to Ferb. "You know, Gretchen brought up a good point. What _are_ we going to do for a grand finale?"

"Hmm… I don't know. We'll have to work on that." Ferb mused.

Phineas felt an idea tickle at the back of his mind. But he didn't want to acknowledge it, not yet. He wasn't sure what certain people would think. He wasn't sure what _he_ thought about it.

But, still.

It seemed right.

 **A/N: I did not want to include the many weeks everyone would be trapped there because it would be a very boring read. You can probably fill in the gaps pretty well based on what you got this chapter.**


	31. Chapter 31

_Ferb Fletcher_

 _August 11, 2013_

 _London, England_

The grand finale was proving to be harder than they thought. Isabella suggested doing a bunch of random combinations of seemingly meaningless things and making it fun, but that didn't sit right with either of them.

Ferb had never been that great at coming up with ideas, and Phineas seemed to be coming up blank for once. He kept saying he wanted to do something that meant something, but he wasn't sure what that was.

Luckily, they had nothing but time to think about it, since they were grounded for almost the rest of the summer.

Or at least, Ferb and Isabella were. Phineas got off scott-free, which Isabella complained was a completely unfair, and to which Phineas said it wasn't his fault he attracted the attention of a supervillian organization. Ferb pointed out it didn't seem to matter since Phineas didn't leave much without the two of them anyway. Just a couple times with Gretchen and Baljeet, and he always made sure to tell them so many details it was practically like they were there.

Isabella simply said she hated being cooped up all the time. She said she felt like a chicken. (That part made Phineas laugh.)

So most of their days were spent attempting to plan a grand finale. Not today, however.

Today, Ferb was on the couch with Perry balanced on his shoulders, a common position from when Ferb was younger. Perry had stuck to his decision and retired from the B.O.W.C.A. Ferb had been relieved, to be honest. He wasn't ready to let go of his pet platypus.

Gretchen's reappearance had been met, according to her, by many tearful apologies from Katie, most of which Gretchen had ignored. If Katie was going to insist on being a fair-weather friend, Gretchen said, then she wanted nothing to do with her.

Instead, the big difference was Buford. He wasn't considered a friend by anyone, not even Phineas— he had to at least apologize first, and that had not happened. But he wasn't really considered an enemy anymore, either. Baljeet had mentioned he was pretty quiet around the house, and he had stopped having to get up so early to get his couple hours of peace. Isabella, though strongly against it at first, had eventually said she would be open to the idea of being friends with him again if he did end up apologizing.

"In _length."_ she emphasized.

"Geez, Isabella, you're angrier than I am." Phineas remarked.

"I'm your future wife. That's my job."

"Wait, what?"

"Don't deny it, Flynn."

"I'm— not denying anything."

"You two are hopeless." Ferb groaned.

At this point they were almost coming down to the wire. Not yet, but Phineas and Isabella left London on the 20th. That was nine days away.

The good news is that after his father realized this, he let them out of grounding early.

"It will commence once school starts." Lawrence warned Ferb. He knew full well that being grounded during school would not bother him.

But since yesterday they had all gone out and spent a bunch of time with Gretchen and Baljeet, today everyone decided to remain in the house and more or less relax.

The 'more or less' came from Phineas, who was pounding his brain out trying to come up with an idea.

Ferb was actually wondering if he already had something he just didn't like, because the amount of time he spent at the figurative drawing board was nearly ridiculous. There were times Isabella had to drag him away so they could all watch a movie together or go spend some time outside.

"Maybe we don't do a finale." Phineas said suddenly, dropping the pencil onto the sketchbook. Both of them gave him a surprised look.

"I'm not saying we don't do anything," Phineas backpedaled, trying to explain. "But I'm not coming up with anything here."

"But we don't know when we're gonna see Ferb again," Isabella pointed out. "Shouldn't we do some kind of send-off?"

"It's not a 'send-off,' it's a _finale._ " Ferb said. "And don't do it all for my sake." He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe… maybe Isabella had the right idea. Maybe we should combine some previous stuff we've built as a sort of recognition of everything we've done."

"Recognition is what I was going for." Phineas said. "But I want to do something new."

"Is that plausible?" Isabella questioned. "You don't have a lot of time."

"Maybe that's the wrong direction. Do you have an old invention that you came up with that you never got to build?" Ferb asked. "We could do that."

"I mean, I have a couple, but none of them are 'grand finale' worthy. If we're talking about a grand finale it should be something everyone recognizes and remembers, something that defines us, like S'Winter, or the chasing the sun trip, or…" he faded off, out of examples.

"I think that's all we got." Isabella confirmed. "We were working on that thing for the Big Ben before the whole F.R.I.E.N.D.S. thing went down, but we don't have time to do that one." She turned to Ferb. "Do you have anything?"

"Most of my inventions are practical. For a while I was trying to buy us the house." Ferb said with a shrug.

Isabella sighed. She gave a smile, probably trying to lighten the mood. "Well, whatever it is, it's going to be awesome. And even if it's just a repeat of a previous invention, it's going to be awesome because you two built it. And it'll be representative of the three of ours friendship and all the good it's done."

Ferb raised an eyebrow. "That was the sappiest thing I've ever heard."

"You loved it."

"Yeah, I did." Ferb admitted.

"I got it." Phineas said, and when Ferb looked back at Phineas he could tell the idea he was thinking about had been swirling around in his head for a while. "I know what we're gonna do for the finale."

"Yeah? What's that?" Isabella asked, as they both moved down to sit on the floor next to Phineas. A sketching session was definitely coming next.

Sure enough, Phineas flipped to the next empty page in his sketchbook. "We're gonna build a rollercoaster."


	32. Chapter 32

_Phineas Flynn_

 _August 19, 2013_

 _London, England_

"And it'll finish back in Hyde Park." Phineas said, finishing the final curve of the design.

Gathered around him was Isabella, Ferb, Baljeet, Gretchen, and Perry, as well as everyone who had been there at S'Winter and was willing to volunteer (which was a surprising amount of kids). They were building a rollercoaster for Pete's sake. They were gonna need some help.

"Ferb, Isabella, Perry, and I came here early and put most of the supplies over there." Phineas said, gesturing to the giant pile of supplies needed sitting over on the other side of the park, including a _ton_ of tracks and tubing and several construction vehicles to speed things along. "And thanks to everyone once again for responding to our posters and ads." He turned back to the four people around him. "Alright, let's make us a finale!"

Everyone rushed off, heading to their various jobs assigned by age and what they could handle.

"You sure you're good?" Isabella asked Phineas, a concerned look crossing over her face."

Phineas smiled gratefully. "Yeah. I am." he said. "Besides, imagine Katie's face if she saw this."

Isabella snickered. "That, I can definitely enjoy."

Phineas had gotten far more sandbags than were probably necessary, and Ferb was rechecking the wires inside the control panel, at Phineas' insistence. Better safe than sorry. Much better safe than sorry.

Phineas was taking the construction machine and putting all the tracks together, and Perry was joining him. The platypus was surprisingly good with mechanics. It left Phineas wondering how he had managed to be fooled all summer, Ferb and Mr. Fletcher for even longer. Apparently Perry was also a really good actor.

They finished the rollercoaster around noon, which was also when Mr. Fletcher arrived on a lunch break.

Ferb was going to start the coaster remotely, so everyone climbing into the cars included him.

"Are we sure this is good to go?" Phineas asked nervously as Ferb got in same car behind him and Isabella, next to his father. Perry climbed on Ferb's shoulders.

"100%. Nothing's going wrong here today." Ferb said with a confident smile.

"Great… I'm still terrified."

"Aww, Phin." Isabella said. "You can hold my hand if you want."

Phineas grabbed her hand and squeezed, tightly. "I don't like rollercoasters." he said quickly, the words coming out all at once so you couldn't really understand what they were.

"We know." Isabella said, as Ferb hit the button as the coaster began it's slow accent.

"It was your idea to build this, you know!" Ferb called over the clacking of the tracks and the chain pulling the car up said tracks.

"I meant it to be like, symbolic of how far we've come or whatever but I am severely regretting that decision now!"

"I've got you, sweetie." Isabella said in a baby voice.

"That sounded condescending!"

And they went over the first hill. Phineas' eyes snapped shut instantly and he started screaming. He would admit that afterward he didn't remember much of the rollercoaster because he had his eyes shut nearly the entire first half, and when Isabella finally convinced him to open his eyes they were going almost completely vertically downward and he shut his eyes again instantly.

When Isabella nudged him again, Phineas had lost track of how long they'd been on the coaster. "Phin, we're back on the ground now." she said.

"W-what?" Phineas asked, opening his eyes. They were indeed back on the ground, and there was a whole group of people around him. When he opened his eyes, they all cheered. There were many compliments, such as 'That was amazing!' or 'Thanks so much!' or 'That was the greatest rollercoaster ever!'

"Uh… thanks. I never want to ride it again." Phineas deadpanned.

"No more rollercoasters for you, huh?" Ferb chuckled.

"None." Phineas said, climbing up. Baljeet and Gretchen, who had been a couple cars behind them, walked over.

"Well, how about a more Phineas kind of finale and we go get some french fries?" Gretchen asked.

"What?" Ferb asked.

"Chips." Phineas said. "Most of us still aren't going to call them chips."

"I am okay with that." Baljeet said with a shrug.

"Yeah, let's do it!" Isabella said.

"That sounds a little more my speed." Phineas said with a chuckle.

Perry gave a happy chatter. It was only then that Phineas noticed how much the platypus' fur was standing on end.

"Well, that's probably not something you want me to come to, so I'll head back home." Lawrence said with a smile. "I'll see you at dinner?"

"See you later, dad." Ferb said with a wave as the group walked off.

"So." Isabella said. "You've officially built a working rollercoaster. Feel good about it?"

"Yeah." Phineas said with a grin.

"It's pretty amazing, huh?"

"I already knew I was amazing."

"Hey. What am I, chop liver?" Ferb asked, sticking his head between the two.

"Let us have a moment Ferb." Isabella said, reaching over and shoving Ferb's head back behind them.


	33. Chapter 33

_Ferb Fletcher_

 _August 20, 2013_

 _London, England_

Passenger Name: Fletcher, Ferb

Flight Date: 8.27.13

Gate: A12 Seat: 26B

This was what was written on part of the ticket Ferb was holding. He looked up at his father in confusion. "What is this? Why does it say we're leaving in a week?"

"Because we are." Lawrence said simply. "That was the earliest flight I could book us. Believe me, I would have picked today if it wasn't ridiculously short notice. The week is for packing, but we don't own a lot, so it should be fairly simple."

"Packing? Why are we packing?" Ferb asked in confusion.

Lawrence gave his son a sad look. "Ferb, we both know neither of us are happy here. This summer is the happiest I've seen you in a long time. And while you will still be grounded beyond belief, I think the best choice for the two of us at this point is…. Well, I have thought long and hard about this. For most of the summer, to be honest. I think the best choice at this point is to leave London."

Ferb raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked down at the ticket. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Lawrence smiled.

…

"Are you _sure_ that is everything?" Baljeet asked, dragging a third suitcase over to the bagging area.

"I think so…" Gretchen said hesitantly.

Baljeet groaned. "Why couldn't we be friends with the inventors _before_ you dragged three suitcases along?"

Phineas and Isabella whistled casually as they walked by them with their singular hand bags.

"To be fair," Ferb pointed out as he and Lawrence walked over too, with Perry once again perched on Ferb's shoulders. "You two weren't admitting you were friends before you met us."

"We're _not_ friends! We're acquaintances!" Baljeet and Gretchen snapped at the same time.

" _Sure."_ Phineas said with a roll of his eyes. Perry gave his chatter-laugh.

As the group walked into the gate, you could see the difference between the students Ferb had met at the beginning of this summer and the ones waiting for the plane now… both the ones he'd come to know as friends and the entire group on the trip. Standing by the window was Buford, holding a couple of souvenirs he'd bought over the course of the summer. He was watching their plane that was already sitting on the runway. Ferb hadn't spoken to him since they'd gotten back to England, but he had reason to believe that would not be the last time he would ever speak to him. And the Fireside Girls were sitting on the floor in a circle talking in hushed tones with an occasional glance over to Gretchen. But rather than look like they were gossiping, the whole group looked more sad than anything.

Most of the tour guides that morning had dropped people off, given a brief wave, and left. Certainly none of their parents had come.

" _Flight 813 is now boarding."_

Everyone glanced up at the announcement, and the Fireside Girls and Buford immediately boarded, as well as other people who were waiting for the same plane.

Baljeet, Gretchen, Lawrence, Isabella, Phineas, and Ferb remained behind. None of them said anything for a few seconds, but eventually Baljeet was the first to walk over to Ferb, Lawrence, and Perry. "It has been a pleasure knowing the three of you." he said, shaking both of their hands, and Perry's paw.

Gretchen did the same thing a couple seconds later. "Uh… what Jeet said." She wiped at a tear. "Sorry, I'm really bad at goodbyes."

Ferb leaned forward and gave Gretchen a hug. She returned it, and Ferb whispered something in her ear.

Gretchen gasped and jumped backwards. " _Really?!"_

Ferb nodded. "Really."

"Yes!" Gretchen pumped her fist and did a mini happy dance.

"What is it?" Baljeet asked. Gretchen grabbed his arm. "Come on, I'll tell you on the plane!"

Phineas looked after her as she dragged Baljeet off. "What was that about?"

"Nothing much." Ferb said with a one-shouldered shrug.

Phineas didn't look like he believed him, but he didn't press. Isabella leaped forward and gave Ferb a hug too, followed by a hug for Lawrence, and then Perry, and then back to Ferb, and eventually all five of them were in a group hug.

Phineas leaned back first and gave a sad smile. "I'm going to miss all of you. I hope I'll get to see you again someday."

Ferb, Lawrence, and Perry all exchanged a glance.

"What?" Isabella asked, her and Phineas sharing a suspicious look.

"Oh, go ahead and tell them." Lawrence said.

"Well," Ferb said, starting to grin. "Don't bother hoping. We're moving to Danville."

" _What?!"_ Phineas and Isabella screamed, right in the middle of the airport.

Ferb laughed. "We were going to surprise you both when we came next week, but seeing as I already told Gretchen…"

"Ferb, that's _AWESOME!"_ Phineas cried, leaping forward to give Ferb another hug, which Ferb happily returned (they were both crushing Perry). "I can't wait!" Then he jumped back again. "Oh my gosh, we can plan so many things to do! I'm gonna get started right away on the plane!"

Isabella laughed. "You can't slow down for one second, can you?"

"Nothing can stop me. Not time, or explosions, or evil organizations… it's my reputation." Phineas said with a grin.

The whole group shared a massive hug again, and then came the announcement:

" _Last call for Flight 813."_

Phineas and Isabella waved as they both ran for the plane.

"Bye, Ferb, bye Mr. Fletcher, bye Perry! See you in a week!" Phineas called. "This is gonna be _awesome!"_

"As you keep saying!" Isabella laughed right along with him.

The leftover three waited until the plane took off about ten minutes later, waving after it even though no one on board could see it.

…

After the plane left, they took a cab back to the house.

Walking inside, Lawrence asked Ferb if he wanted to go out for food, and when Ferb said yes, Lawrence walked off to get their coupons.

Ferb froze for a moment, looking around at the house that had been his home for the past 12 years. He had been incredibly comfortable here. It had been the one place he could be himself, where he was not being forced to talk by teachers or bullies forcing him to stand up to them. It had been a home to Perry, and the two had shared many an afternoon and evening together, often just sitting in the quiet. Ferb had read Perry countless books, which he only now knew Perry had understood every word of. It had been a much needed change after the death of his mother. It had Ferb's mark all over it, the only one it felt like he had ever managed to leave on the world.

It felt empty now.

"So, Perry." Ferb said to the platypus on his shoulder, who was giving him a slightly concerned look. "We're off to Danville soon."

Perry chattered in an affirming way, and his look changed to one that Ferb could interpret easily:

 _Yeah. It's gonna be great._

 _Fin_

 **A/N: Oh my gosh, guys. This story. I don't even remember how it popped into my head, to be honest. I just knew my first thought was: 'I can't do that, that's so cliché.' But then I started writing it, and I absolutely** _ **love**_ **the way it turned out. Some things about the plot cleared up while I was writing it, and some things took the story in directions I had not intended (as you know). But if you've read the whole thing, thank you** _ **so much.**_ **You are amazing and so** _ **incredibly**_ **patient. (And I promise I am going to publish** _ **Archie**_ **soon, you don't have to wait too much longer.) Seeing people follow or favorite this story or leave a review was so surprising and so amazing, and I mean it when I say that was my favorite part. Thanks so much for reading my story, I love you guys!**


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